A Eulogy for Joan Stubbs (My Mum)
I have something important to tell you.
It’s what my mum said about death a few years ago when a close friend of hers died suddenly.
I remember when she told me the news. “Gee Mum”, I said, “how do you feel about that?” Her matter of fact reply:
“Well, it goes to show. You just have to make the most of every day.”
And boy did she ever!
It’s a great lesson for all of us. Something I hope you take away from today and from what’s happened. Whenever you think of Joan Stubbs remember it.
A morning in the life of Joan Stubbs
To give you a sample of my Mum’s life, here’s what she did by the time most of us are pouring out the cornflakes for breakfast in the morning:
Put on her walking shoes and walked down to the beach. Marvelled at the sun coming up over the Pacific Ocean. Talked to the people walking their dogs on the beach there at North Peregian. Greeted their hound like a long lost friend. Chatted to the neighbours appearing to get their newspaper from the drive as she headed back up Lorilet Street.
Brought Dad’s paper in. Made him a cup of tea and put some porridge on. Put a load a washing on. Started the crossword. Made a shopping list. Half a dozen other things I’m probably not even aware of. And she had a breakfast.
Sometimes it was exhausting just being around her. In recent years I used to wonder: Was my mum always like this when we were kids and I just didn’t notice? Or is she speeding up?
The Noosa Marathon
Mum was pretty fit. If you’d ever walked with her, you’d know how hard it was hard to keep up. She did aerobics til fairly recently, then gym and fitball. Her aerobics instructor once told me she was one of the fittest people in the class. I think she was 70 at that stage.
Mum had even been going in the Noosa Marathon in recent years. The 5km event.
A couple of years ago, in one of our phone conversations, she casually mentioned she had come 4th in her age group.
“Wow, 4th Mum, that’s pretty good”, I said. “Yes, it’s not bad, I’m happy with it,” she replied.
“What age bracket was that?” I asked her. “The over 60’s,” she said.
“Mum, the over 60’s, you’re 75! You tell them next year, they need an over 70’s category”, I said. Lo and behold in 2006, they did have an over 70’s category. And of course mum came first. She dropped it into a phone conversation. “That’s great”, I said.
“Yes, well, I was the only one in it,” was her dry response.
Humility is a great quality in people and Mum was pretty good at it.
Mum’s groups and activities
I had a close relationship with Mum and we’d talk about heaps of things. Inevitably she’d mention this person and that person. This group and that. Different activities she was involved in. It whizzed over my head most of the time. Just how many people and activities became apparent once Matt and I started calling people to let them know what had happened.
“I’ll tell the book group,’ said one person. “I’ll tell the gym girls,” said another. And on it went.
What were all the things Mum did I asked Dad when I went to write this speech.
“Well,” he said, “there’s Probis, Rotary, Bridge (in Brisbane and here), the National Parks Association, book club, that gym fitball thing, our sip n dip social evenings, Royal Alfred Hospital get-togethers, the Melbourne Girls Grammar re-unions and she used to help in the respite care centre.”
Then Dad moved onto how she gardened, looked after the neighbour’s dog, was always having people over, talked on the phone too much, did a creative writing course, wrote poems, drove friends around and most importantly helped people whenever they needed it. Nothing was too much trouble.
“Oh, and in her spare time she looked after me,” said Dad.
Well yes, and there was looking after us kids for decades. In fact she never stopped being there for us. And more recently for our own children.
The grandkids
She was always on the lookout for things for her grandkids — Archie, Luca and Dylan.
Last Wednesday, the day she had the heart attack, Matt received a jumper that Mum had knitted and sent in the mail for Luca, and I got a book for Archie. That night I read Archie one of those books, one about a dog of course, knowing something serious had happened but not able to get on a flight up here.
For me, the grandkid thing is the toughest part. Her having such a short space of time with them. Interestingly she wasn’t mad on little babies — I think because she couldn’t banter with them. But my last trip just 4 weeks ago, she was really coming into her own with Archie.
No wonder kids took to her. They instinctively responded to her energy and creativity. Mind you, she was onto them when they mucked up, but I think her ability to be fun but firm appealed to them.
The bummer is she won’t be around for her 4th which is due in August — her first grand-daughter.
Younger than her years
She was younger than her years my Mum. She often liked the CD’s of modern music I made for her. She was big fan of Countdown when I was growing up. Even in her later years, she took to email and the computer we organised for her. She saw quickly this new technology could keep her to keep in contact with us — me in Sydney, Matt in Melbourne and Jen in Canada.
But when she couldn’t get the modern world to work, she’d certainly deal with it the Joan way. Now and again her printer would give up the ghost and she’d ring me asking for advice on how to fix it. Hard thing to do from Sydney and I was never much help. But she’d call me back later and say: “I fixed the printer.” What did you do I’d ask her. “I gave it a good whack and away she went,” she’d say.
Joan the Force of Nature
Check out this photo of Joan (the ‘cowgirl’ one in your order of service.) It’s my favourite shot of Mum. It says so much about her spirit, but also for me about her love of nature.
It was taken on a property near here — at Gympie. She loved the country. She loved horses and learnt to ride early in her life. She was always great with animals, including the dogs we had and other people’s dogs she’d have out on loan. They brought great joy to her.
Joan saw the beauty in nature. It’s almost no coincidence the night she passed away was one of the most beautiful night sky’s I have seen in a long while. That crisp cold clear Thursday night last week. I remember thinking: are you there Mum looking down on us? And saying to myself: I dunno, but it sure is beautiful and you showed us to how to see that.
It’s certainly no coincidence that Mum and Dad chose Noosa as a place to live when they retired. It’s a special beautiful, natural place. You’re lucky if you live here.
Full bore, then stop
You may be shocked that Joan died so suddenly. In a way I’m not. She went full bore at life my mum. Full bore, then stop. She didn’t ever do things by half measures.
She didn’t want to be an invalid or on life support. She didn’t believe in it. Like most things in life, she was very pragmatic about that. More so because she was a nurse of 20 or 30 years and had seen enough.
Even her exit was dramatic. This time last week she was right as rain. She’d gone for a walk in the national park in the morning. She was changing a light globe that afternoon when she had a severe heart attack.
She survived from that Wednesday evening to Thursday night. The intensive care nurse at Nambour Hospital said it was amazing that she did get that far. It was almost as if she was giving Matt and I time to get here from Sydney and Melbourne.
And she may not have, and we may not have made it, if it wasn’t for Dave and Marilyn who live next door. Dave gave Mum CPR. It really was an awesome effort. A tough thing to do in a situation like that. Thank you.
Thanks
I want to thank you all for being here too. It means a lot to John, Matt, Jen and I. Many of you have travelled some distance. I know there’s some of you from Brisbane where we lived in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and from Melbourne where Mum spent her early years and did her nurses training. It’s good to see her sister Mary and Jack from Canberra.
Thanks to our neighbours, family and friends who have been supplying the three blokes at 46 Lorilet Street with food. And all the people from the different activities Mum was involved in here in Noosa.
On a personal note, thanks to my brother Matt who has been a dynamo in helping to organise things, including the slides today. Thanks Maryanne and Shauna for looking after our kids. Thanks to my friend Lee for coming from Melbourne.
It’s a measure of my Mum’s positive energy and ability to relate to all sorts, that so many people have come here today, from such a range of backgrounds.
Half a century with Dad
Thanks finally to Dad — for giving Jen, Matt and I such a great life, for loving Mum so much and for hanging in there at this really difficult time.
Mum and Dad were together for 52 years and married for 51 of them. Half a century. Not a bad score hey? I’m still on a duck.
What’s happened is a big change for Dad. So we’re here for him. People have asked what they can do, I guess even a small amount of moral support for John will help a lot.
The irony of the hospital
When I walked into the Intensive Care Unit last Thursday I was struck by the fact that Mum had spent decades of her life working in hospitals looking after people, and here she was. In the end, her final hours were in a hospital — with exactly the kind of down-to-earth people that she liked to be amongst.
When she finally died the nurse said to me: “your mum spent her life looking after others and now she’s done her bit. It’s time for her to finally rest.”
What to think
I deliberately sat there for awhile with Mum after Matt lead Dad away. I wanted to see what came into my head about her.
I was balling my eyes out and shaking my head and smiling at the same time. All I could think and then bleet out was: ‘You did good mum. You did really well. You did a bloody good job.’ Or as she would say:
“You did good kid.”
It’s a gift this breath of life we have, and Joan Stubbs really made the most of it. She squeezed every inch out of it. She didn’t waste it. It’s a lesson to us all. And of course she did a damn fine job looking after us and bringing us up. If I can be the half the parent my mum was, I’ll be doing well.
What to do
And what of the future? Actually, I know exactly what to do. I know what she would say now. It’s my favourite Joan Stubbs’ism. Whenever I was stewing over things or lamenting stuff going wrong, she’d matter of factly tell me:
“Oh for goodness sake Philip, just get on with it.”
That’s what we Stubbs’s must do. It’s what we all have to do when there’s something we can’t undo.
Final quote
I want to leave you with a couple of quotes which sum things up. The first is from George Bernard Shaw:
“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment. One I want to make burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
The second quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson. It’s corny but true:
What is success? To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition. To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; This is to have succeeded.
By any measure Joan Stubbs, you did good. Some of you may cry like I did last Thursday night, but also be happy for her. See the beauty in her life. She really made the most of it.
Joan was my best friend. My hero. For the family she was our Rock. We learnt so much from her.
We love you Mum. We will miss you more than words can say.
