9.35 am Monday 28 April 2025 – Rebirth Day 9 This is day 9 of my rebirth. Exactly 1 week and 2 days ago, I decided I had to breathe new life into the not quite alive me that has existed since Margaret’s death. I am in Sydney staying with some very dear friends. It has been raining. Every time I visit Sydney, I am overwhelmed by its great physical size and by the presence of rain. It is always raining when I am in Sydney but it never really rains in Adelaide – not in the way it rains in Sydney. Today, I return to Adelaide to the home Margaret and I shared. Our house knows she is gone just as much as I do. It is now my home. It is no longer the home that Margaret and I shared together when we were joined in love. Now it is the home of someone who still aches for her presence. But she is gone and I must continue with my own rebirth. When Margaret was seconds away from death, I promised her I would be okay. It was a sacred promise. I must keep it and I will keep it. There are now so many empty spaces in my life – empty spaces that were once filled by people. That yawning abyss is where Margaret used to laugh at me when I was being stupid. Now, when Margaret laughs, I hear her only in my memory. In that smaller crevasse, Mario used to sit. The prostate cancer took him on his final journey just before Christmas 2024. He no longer has to battle the pain just to keep walking. Mario has finished his final walk at Morialta. That pit over there was dug out by earth moving equipment operated by Margaret’s former best friend Ann Ryan. When Ann finished digging this hole, she crawled into it and pulled the earth in over the top of herself. I forgave her long ago, but I doubt she will ever be able to forgive herself for what she did. Side by side with the Ann Ryan excavation are the gaps that were once filled by Margaret’s former friends Sue Chapman, Heather Long and Cheryl Scopazzi. Over there are the gaps made by Margaret’s closest family members – her brother Jim Redden, sister Maurine, nephew Jameson Henderson-Redden and Jameson’s partner Charli. The best thing about absences is that when you are reborn, you get to fill in the gaps and the gaps cease to be gaps. The gaps become places filled by others who value you for one simple reason. The gaps filled by others who value you, value you because you are someone no one else can ever be. No one else can ever be you and you become valued because of who you are. The importance of simply being yourself is usually overlooked – especially by me in relation to me. Without your presence in it, the universe would blink out of existence. That is how supremely important you are. Everyone matters. There are no exceptions. Whoever you are and no matter how unimportant you have convinced yourself that you are, without you in it, the universe would stop existing. The universe exists because you are in it. I look forward to meeting all of you on our rebirth journeys. See you soon. | 
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