Hope in Her Heart

The Today show made me cry on Friday 13 November, nearly a day before the attacks on Paris shook the world. I'd seen Channel Nine's 'Block of Cash' segment on numerous occasions—I'd willed the viewer to pick up the phone, paused to listen to their excitement when they won—but when Karl Stefanovic read out that day's potential winner I was stunned to hear the name of a friend, Beverley Horsnell. I didn't cry because she missed out on winning. My tears flowed for the timing and the cruel irony, but mostly because those five long unanswered rings reiterated that she was gone. Bev passed away in September.

Like mail that comes for someone who has died, the announcement of her name for a prize that required answering a call was a swift and painful reminder that the world had lost Bev, one of the most selfless and kind-hearted women you could meet. She loved her family, socialising with friends, caravanning, reading and the beach. Cancer took her only seven months after her diagnosis, and six weeks before her daughter’s wedding.

How many people who knew Bev heard her name broadcast, felt that chilling jolt as I did, and despaired at how short and unfair life can be? Perhaps hugged their loved ones a couple of seconds longer that day?

Amongst all the entrants around Australia hoping for a chance to win, it seemed a harsh trick of fate that her name was selected now. If only...if only her luck had come in months earlier, I thought—how it would have cheered her to win that $10,000 and share the money and the joy with her family. But of course... if only she'd been lucky in a different way, with the outcome of her treatment.

Then I started to doubt myself ... Bev passed away more than two months ago. Had the competition even been running that long? Did I really hear her name, or was she floating in my subconscious, close to the surface at that moment? Surely I hadn't picked up on a name with similar sounds, or the same pattern of syllables.

According to the website, entries opened on Friday 4 September. Bev must have entered on that first day because she fell gravely ill early on the next and passed away on Sunday 6 September. Although bittersweet, it cheered me to think of her entering the competition on her phone from her hospital bed, still optimistic and eager to be involved in life.

Like the majority of Australians, Bev had probably never been on TV or radio, or in a newspaper, other than her birth and funeral notice. And now, her name on morning TV, however fleetingly…like a tiny memorial of her own making. By entering the competition she added one more story to the wealth of ‘Bev stories’ her husband and children can recall and tell. Some might scoff but I fancied that she had some influence over the draw from afar, that she’d found a way to reach out and say ‘Remember me’.

Someone once told me that it’s better to die with hope in your heart, having things to aspire to even if you never accomplish them. Bev was looking forward to her daughter’s wedding, the beginning of a new family that would be part of her own, and nothing could be better than that.

Bev couldn’t win last Friday, but a different kind of prize went to those who miss her. I won a mental image of her wishing to win, sending her details for a chance at the 'Block of Cash', layering a little more hope in her heart, a heart unburdened by the knowledge that it was her last good day on this earth.