The Craft Group and Caring for Terry

By Greg

This story took me longer to write than perhaps any other, but it was a tale I wanted to tell.

Thinking About Trenna

Trenna’s birthday has recently passed so obviously I started thinking about her. One thing that came to mind was the time she spent with our neighbour Terry, near the end of Terry’s life.

Terry

Terry, her husband Neil, and their young son Jason moved into the house on the corner, two doors up from us many years ago. Apart from the occasional “G’day” as we walked past each other’s houses we really didn’t have much to do with them.

There was one time. I was out weeding the front lawn when there was a clattering noise and then some soft sniffing sort of noises.

On the road a few houses away was a small boy, on the road, entangled in his new bicycle, looking at his grazed elbow and holding back tears. He had done what we have all done when we are new to bike riding, he’d come a cropper off his treadley.

Now, I’m not a father, and at that point I didn’t know much about kids, but I certainly knew how to get a chain back on a bicycle and I figured that was probably half of his problem. I showed some compassion, helped him to his feet, checked he wasn’t actually dying, showed him how easy it was to fix his bike, and asked him if he lived far away.

He didn’t, he lived on the corner, and his Mum was home. Ahh! He was obviously Terry and Neil’s son.

The incident was of minor significance to me and I had all but forgotten it, but about 20 years later Jason reminded me of it and said he had always remembered me helping him.

However, I’ve skipped some years….

Craft Group

Trenna and I lived in our Kensington home together from 1988. For many year we didn’t have a lot to do with the neighbourhood. We knew the neighbours on each side of our place and chatted to them from time to time.

We had also picked up little snippets that allowed us to make unsubstantiated opinions about others in the neighbourhood, but we certainly didn’t mix with them socially.

This changed in about the year 2005 (or maybe 2006) when Trenna came inside one weekend after talking to one of the two Debbies who lived on either side of us.

“I’ve just been talking to Debbie Hirte. She’s invited me to the neighbourhood craft group, they meet every second Tuesday” she told me.

“That’s hilarious! You said “no” I take it?”.

“No, I said yes.”

“You, a CRAFT group, you don’t do craft…” I replied incredulously.

“I CAN do craft. She says that Deb next door goes, Jackie across the road, Terry on the corner, and a couple of other women too.” They turned out to be Sheryl and Sandra who both lived on the same street as Terry.

“Well, it will be a way to get to know the local women, I guess, good on ya.”

First Meeting

That Tuesday we had an early dinner and Trenna set off to walk with some of the women to the local church community centre – an old house at the opposite end of the block to where Terry and Neil lived.

She had with her some crochet hooks, some wool and a vintage crochet pattern book, all things I’m sure she inherited from my mother when my two sisters didn’t want them.

A couple hours later hoots of laughter and cackling noises marked the return of the women.

“Boy! That was noisy. Noisy but good” were Trenna’s first words as she came in the door.

She said that gossiping seemed to be the main craft being conducted, but each woman had her own projects and they worked on them with differing levels of enthusiasm and skill.

She told me that Terry from on the corner was a great crocheter and knitter and that she was happy to help Trenna with what she was doing. This was a comfort to Tren, because she was racking her brain trying to remember the skills she had learnt as a teenager. And her poor eyesight didn’t help her comprehension.

Friends

From then on Terry and Trenna’s friendship grew. They would quite frequently see each other on week days and it wasn’t uncommon for us to mix with Terry’s family on weekends.

Her husband Neil called the Craft group, “Stitch and Bitch”!

Terry was a great help and inspiration to Trenna as she embarked on and successfully completed quite a few knitting and crocheting projects.

Trenna certainly enjoyed having another women, in close proximity to talk to during the day.

By this stage young Jason had grown, was now a qualified electrician and had found a partner of his own.

Then one day Terry and Tren were having a cuppa together and Terry confided that sometimes her hand and arm weren’t doing what they should be. Trenna immediately insisted that Terry see a doctor, tests were done, and a late stage brain tumour was diagnosed.

Sadly, Terry’s decline was quite quick from then, but she still wanted to stay in close touch with Trenna, and also Jackie, from across the road. Trenna spent more and more time with Terry and I could see it was taking an emotional and to a lesser extent physical toll on Tren.

Terry found, as so many other people have, that Trenna was an excellent confidant and sounding post. Some stories and confidences Trenna felt comfortable passing on to me, some she kept forever.

Last Wishes

One thing they talked about, and which troubled Trenna enough that she had to confide in me was that Terry had told her what she wants done with her remains.

“I think Neil will want to take my ashes down South to our holiday home” she told Trenna. “But I don’t want that, it’s too cold down there!” Terry was originally from South Africa.

She went on to tell Tren of a really lovely day she had had with Jason many years ago when Jase was very young. They had gone to the Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park in the north of the Perth metropolitan area. They had had a lovely picnic and joyously interacted with the wild kangaroos that roam the park. The wildflowers were out and it looked beautiful.

She told Trenna that that was where she wanted her ashes spread.

Of course, Tren immediately said “well, you need to tell Neil that.”

“Oh, Tren. I can’t. I want you to tell him – when I’m gone.”

Tren wasn’t comfortable with the idea, but respected Terry’s wishes, and when the time came she made sure that Neil knew what Terry had told her.

A Personal Aside

I understand the difficulty Terry faced. To some it might seem like admitting defeat – it isn’t. Apparently she also didn’t want to dent Neil’s belief that Terry would pull through.

Trenna and I understood that it was a real possibility that Trenna could die suddenly as a result of her Marfan’s condition. In the last couple of years of Trenna’s life we knew that she didn’t have very long to go. But we still had trouble talking about the end, and any arrangements Trenna might want.

We did talk about it from time to time, but it was hard. In our particular case Trenna and my views and beliefs were very much aligned and I have full confidence I have acted according to her wishes.

What I guess I’m trying to say is, I don’t blame Terry for using Trenna as an intermediary.

A Crafty Legacy

In that last period of Terry’s life she started to crochet squares to make a baby’s rug. She had a mind to complete it and leave it for Jason and the grandchild she would never see.

Terry never finished the rug, but about seven years later Trenna was able to complete it and pass it onto Jason, his wife Raquel, and to Zara, Terry’s granddaughter. The story of how the rug came into existence is HERE.

As Terry got more ill and frail Tren spent more time there and occasionally provided a fair bit of physical assistance. She helped as much as she could and was always very grateful that Jackie was usually nearby if needed.

Farewell

Terry passed away at 10:28 am on 8 August 2007.

The funeral was a lovely affair. The hearse stopped outside Terry’s beloved house and all the neighbours and friends lined up behind it. We then walked the 300 metres to the Church near where the Craft Group meetings were held.

Trenna wrote and gave one of the eulogies and I was very proud her. I know that it prompted thoughts of her own mortality and vulnerability.

Epilogue

I looked through Trenna’s 2007 and 2008 diaries to see if the Craft Group continued after this period. It did for a while but about that time a new woman started attending. She was a bit younger than the others, and a lot louder.

The new woman wanted to constantly steer discussion towards children, schools and childcare. Trenna didn’t mind a bit of this, but it was constant. The diary shows that she really wanted to tell the interloper that this is adult time. I doubt she ever did but it is clear from that time onwards attendance numbers started to drop off.

The diaries around Terry’s death also reveal that Trenna and Jacky were playing a huge role in organising the funeral, informing people and, Trenna in particular, acting as a grief counsellor.

When the Craft Group eventually died Trenna missed the interaction with the other women in the street and she missed being just one of the gang, a normal person for a couple of hours on a Tuesday.

There was however a long lasting legacy in that Trenna did get to know some of the locals a bit better, and Trenna kept on crocheting and knitting for the rest of her life.

I am grateful for her friendship with Terry, of her camaraderie with the rest of the Craft Group, and I’m appreciative of Terry’s role in bringing out Trenna’s hidden craft skills.

Trenna was probably part of the Craft Group for less than three years, but I’m very glad that she was.