Rubénerd Blog :)

Up until recently, the worst crimes South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson committed were against common sense, civil liberties, free speech and defamation of law abiding computer gamers. Now it’s personal.

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J-Walk, surprisingly the proprietor of The J-Walk Blog, posted an entry about a neat gadget that lets you use those tiny pencil stubs by sticking two of them together. This may have (nay, probably has) already been invented, but what about a longer gadget that you stick a short pencil stub onto the end of so you don’t need two of them?

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My mum and I in 2006 at Changi Airport in Singapore

Since 2007 my blog here has been dedicated to my late beautiful, cheeky, warm, funny, brave mum Debra. Now that it’s 2009 I finally feel strong enough to upload some photos of us you see here and write this post: I’ve rewritten it hundreds of times (yes, really!) but nothing I’ve put here seems to be able to do her justice. Here’s take #101 I’ll be linking to with a Dedication link in the header of this blog.

After an epic battle with cancer that lasted since my sister and I was little kids and through three international moves, Debra suddenly left us in her sleep on the day before Christmas Eve 2007. Her funeral was a beautiful service in Sydney a few weeks later with close friends and family played to the sounds of Santana’s Sam Pa Ti, Bob Dylan’s Forever Young, Bob Marley’s Stir It Up, Sabah Habas Mustapha’s Warm Rain Falls, The Beatles’ Let it Be and of course Spirit in the Sky.

She was an amazing person with a ridiculous sense of humour that I can proudly claim was the primary influence for my own. We’d watch Bertie Wooster and Fawlty Towers episodes for hours on weekends (a cow creamer!). In the oncology ward where we considered the nurses and Dr Tan family she’d refer to her chemotherapy drip as champagne and loudly insist on seeing the wine menu. She introduced me to Michael Franks (now my favourite singer/songwriter) and his Search for the Perfect Shampoo. I’d dance into her bedroom singing Dean Martin’s How Do Ya’ Like Your Eggs in the Morning? to her at breakfast and she’d throw books. I’d poke fun at her short stature and she’d mock me for being a nerd who was too scared to ask that cute Korean girl out that she had already pre-approved. Most of the time when she didn’t have enough strength to get out of bed I’d bring a pair of laptops in and I’d do my work while she lectured on why the dress the latest celebrity was wearing was awful or how corrupt the cosmetics industry is.

Officially the most epic photo of all friggen time!

Behind the tough, silly exterior though was a person in almost constant pain and anguish. Routine aspects of most of our lives were insurmountable chores for her that only got more difficult and painful as the years went on. She was a master at hiding it from the outside world, but the consequence was she’d rarely want to leave the house for the effort to put her self described "mask" on was nearly always just too much.

She confided in my sister and I shortly before she left us that we were the reason she continued to fight, because she wanted us to be old enough to have memories of her. It’s only now I realise how incredible (and lump-in-the-throat inducing) that was. I’m also becoming aware now as I get older that she won’t be around for so many milestones in my sister’s and my lives (graduations, work, weddings, kids) but we do have memories we would not trade for anything.

One of her favourite songs of all time was Thunderclap Newman’s Something in the Air, particularly the beginning of the final verse when the coda finishes and the melody seems to soar; she told me she loved it because it sounded like a bird was taking off without worries. While I selfishly wish she was back here with me, I also know she was living in excruciating pain for years and her passing finally allowed her to take off and leave the agony behind. Even if she was taken away from me far too soon, she’s no longer in pain.

Unfortunately I didn’t seem to inherit her class or her incredible musical, comedic, artistic or literary skills (thank you Rainer!), but given this website is one of my own primary outlets for my mind I can’t think of anything more fitting than to dedicate this to Debra Schade, even if all it amounts to are sporadic thoughts about software and the universe that she’d laugh and mock me for for if she read! We had a great relationship :-).

I love you Mumster, I miss you so much it hurts. Thank you for giving me life but even more for your friendship. Forgive me for this next part.

#import Display.h;
int main( int argc, const char *argv[] ) {
    printf( "Lots of love, Ruben" );
    return 0;
}

NOTE: While I blanketly licence all my original work here under Creative Commons Attributon Share-Alike, the Schade and Ross families reserve full copyright for the above files. Please do not reproduce without permission (barring fair use).

Today marks the one year anniversary that my mum finally stopped living in pain. I’m sorry I couldn’t come up with anything less corny than that. It’s sobering in a way, it may sound really weird but I took some comfort (not sure if that’s the right word) in knowing I had talked to her less than a year before. The "acceptance" phase of grief or whatever cliche the psychiatric community has for it now has been out of sight for much longer than I thought.

I used to think it was a Hollywood storyline stereotype that people expected to see loved ones again walking around the corner or hearing their voice as if they had just been on a long holiday. It ain’t no stereotype! When I did my first study stint in Australia I didn’t see her for over a year so this isn’t even the longest we’ve been apart yet. I do expect to see her sitting up in bed during the day listening to her book tapes while reading Aussie newspapers online and drinking tea as I walk past her bedroom.

I envy those who think they’ll be going to the heaven(s) of their faith(s) and god(s) when they die and see their loved ones. As an Atheist I pretty much know this is all twisted mythology with no basis in reality, but realising this sure doesn’t make it any easier. In another way though I think it would cheapen the memories you had of someone if you genuinely thought you’d see them again in a heaven or similar place. We had a great relationship above that of a typical Western mum-son with lots of sillyness and fun even during the worst of her treatment, and memories of those will be with me until that bookshelf I built myself with the bowling ball on top hits me on the head.

Anyway what I know for certain is that my beautiful late mum hated people who dwelled only on bad things even if I think she was guilty of doing it herself more often than not herself. I think I just felt her whacking my head! So to mark this otherwise painfully sad occasion, I thought I’d recall a silly thing that happened while we were walking around last year.

We had just left the oncology ward one afternoon and she’d just had a relatively benign chemo shot. Using the word benign to describe chemo seems ridiculous, but compared to some of the other ones she had, it’s apt! Anyway given it took a few hours for the side effects to set in, we’d use those precious few hours to do some serious retail therapy as she called it. In Singapore most of the shopping centres in the Orchard area are connected by a series of underpasses with escalators; that afternoon we were in Shaw House on our way to Wheelock Place across the street.

I had remembered that there were two entrances to the underpass on the side we were on, but she informed me that only one was accessible and retorted that she "knows her way around Singapore shopping centres!" In mid sentence she proceeded to board an escalator… that was going the wrong way! I caught her and we both roared with laughter, much to the confusion of the people around us!

In another incident we were in a hotel in the Ubud hills of Bali during one of her chemo breaks. We had ordered a gigantic plate of fried rice and vegetables which once placed on the table she proceeded to hit with her elbow, sending the plate and it’s entire contents sailing through their air and showering down all over herself, the chair and several thousand square metres of floor! She looked up with a sheepish expression and said "hehe… uh… errr… shit?" I guess you had to be there, but it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen then and since :).

That’s not to say all my memories of her involve silly slapstick comedy incidents! She was such a spontaneous person, if there was ever a photo of an animal pulling a silly facial expression in a book, magazine or even in a gigantic shop display with people rushing around us, she’d insist on either my sister and I stopping what we were doing and taking a photo of her emulating said facial expression! I have gigabytes of photos of my cheeky mum grinning next to pictures of giraffes, putting on gruff faces next to bull dogs… the list goes on!

Then there were the silly names we had for each other. For some reason I started calling her "The Mumster", and at some point she started calling me "Ruuuuuuuuben" while flailing her arms and fingers pretending to be a vampire, to which I’d reply "Deeeeeeeeeeebra"! And she hated being called "Deb", so of course I’d call her that constantly too. Sometimes even "Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeb" Greetings in the morning would take a long time!

What I still love the most though are my memories of her sitting up in bed when she was particularly weak as she typed on her laptop, while I sat at a makeshift table across the room on mine… both of us singing along loudly to Dean Martin :). Or when she’d have enough energy and we’d walk down the street to the Starbucks in Paragon and usurp unsuspecting people from the comfy lounge chairs because she had a walking stick :D. We’d sit there and talk about the most obscure topics; she’d talk about corruption in the cosmetics industry (she KNEW her stuff!) and I’d talk about my then-new obsession with the Perl scripting language, and neither of us would care that we didn’t have any idea what the other was talking about! She’d ask me if I had worked up the guts each week to ask the cute Korean girl in my school year group out, and we’d both laugh every time because we already knew the answer! I got more than my fair share of jovial head whackings with her extravagant clear spiral cane!

I have not done her justice in this post, but I hope at least I’ve shared some sillyness. After all as she always said, if we don’t have a sense of humour even about the sad and negative, we just turn into hardened cynics that nobody likes to be around… or at least words to that affect. It’s an incredibly corny thing to say, but I reckon had the world been full of Debra Schade’s, we’d all be much better off. Not to mention cosmetics companies wouldn’t be able to come up with bullshit bogus names for inert chemicals in their products that have no effects whatsoever and then charge people extra because they do so, and have the word "Paris" in their name. She was onto them. She was onto them good!!!

She always complained that you couldn’t get designer chemotharpy drips. To the doctors! And she was always asking to see their wine list in the oncology ward so she could order a huge Champaign and drink it while killing me at cards. Even with the world swimming around her she was still able to beat me at Yiftico. Every single time! I wish I could say I was letting her win, but no such luck! She always got the red aces, every time! And she didn’t have any tells at all! What a crock!

Now if you’d excuse me, it’s probably time for me to leave. Or buy another drink so I can sit here for longer.. I’ve been sitting in this same comfy chair at that same Starbucks I talked about before for over an hour now. It’s funny how some things change, but some habits don’t. She hated the smell of Earl Grey tea, perhaps it’s time to order one :).

Love you mumster.

Don’t worry, this is not a post about how Our Beloved Yahoo might be being bought by the Evil Empire, I’m at the stage when even I think it’s been done to death already.

It’s been over a month since my beautiful, artistic, cheeky hippy mummy died in her sleep after fighting cancer for over 12 years, and the feelings are still very raw and hard to live with. What I can appreciate though is the overwhelming support from all kinds of people around the world from close friends and family I’ve known since I was a child to my fellow Twitterinos and Rubenerd Show listeners who I’ve never met in person but who make every day that much more fun and enjoyable. The faculty at my university have been extremely supportive and understanding as have my Rubenerd Labs clients. To use the technical sociological terms, all you guy rock!

My poor sister has had somewhat of a different experience. Without going into too many details, most of her polytechnic teachers have been cold and completely devoid of empathy. Some of her so called friends, to put it politely, have repeatedly backstabbed her when she’s been too upset to fulfill obligations, answer calls or meet up. I can’t fathom what they could possibly be feeling or how they can justify such retched treatment.

In any event, as we continue to rebuild our lives I know I speak for all the Schade Trio (catchy name is it not?) when I say thank you to all the fabulous people who have helped us, and screw all of you who have chosen to be arses. Using technical sociological terms again you see :-).

On Saturday the 29th of December 2007 some of our closest friends and dear family from all across Australia congregated at Woronora in Sydney, Australia for my mummy’s funeral. It was a beautiful service with lots of flowers, plenty of her favourite music playing and some sweet and heartfelt tributes from Ted and Margaret, my dad Rainer, Sharon, Megan and Lynn.

I can’t think of a single moment in my life where I have cried more or felt so much grief, but I also laughed and remembered all the great times we had together and enjoyed talking to so many people, some of whom I hadn’t seen in over a decade, about mummy and her incredible life.

I’ve already thanked everyone I could see while I was there, but I wanted for the record to make a note of it here. Thank you to everyone who attended, thank you to all the people in my fabulous family for helping to organise the celebration and thank you to all my friends from school and university, to my teachers (well, most of my teachers!) and to everyone here on my website and on Twitter for all your love, help and support during these long, trying 12 years. I couldn’t have done it without you guys.

I love you mummy.

In case you couldn’t make it to the funeral service, you can download the photo and PDF versions of the handout below. Unlike all the other original material in posts on this site, these are not released under a Creative Commons licence; the Schade and Ross families retain all copyrights.

NOTE: I frantically typed up this post only a few hours after the dreadful event, so please give due consideration.

so as you can imagine it’s not exactly one of my more well thought out or weblog posts.

FOR DEBRA ANNE SCHADE. MY MUMMY.

I’m spewing whatever comes to mind first, sorry if this doesn’t make much sense. I’m als typing this not writing because computers have been my life and they’re my comfort zone.

This evening my beautiful mummy, a person who never hurt anyone and who was the centre of my life died. My dad walked in this evening to find her lying in bed cold and not moving. Because the chemo makes her so weak she spend most of her life lying in bed so when I saw her last lying there last I thought I should let her sleep. I missed my last chance to say goodbye.

She has chemotherapy for over 12 years in 3 different countries and she always said that all she wanted was just to be normal even if just for a week. She was a brilliant artist, painter and she couldn’t do any of it. She was either in pain or asleep. i was 8 when she got sick so I have almost no memories of her at all when she was well. None.

Where do I go from here I don’t know. I’m an atheist, I don’t believe in God or Heaven and I know I’ll never see her again. What I can say though is that no matter what happens shes out of pain now and I really hope that there is a chance she can see me now. I’m only 21, she’ll never see my graduate from university, marry (yeah as if anyone would want a dork like me) and she’ll never get any of the things I promised her.

I feel awful, all I can think about is what I’m going to miss out on, I can’t think about her. I am such a self absorbed arsehole, why am I worried about me? My beautiful mum is dead and the only thing I can do is look to the future and all I’ll miss. I’m a terrible terrible person.

I can’t think what else to say. All I can think of is that she was the most warm, beautiful, funny, artistic, caring, compassionate, determined, and nice person and I feel so privelidged to have had her as a mum. She was too good for me. I’m sorry it’s very cliche but thats exactly how I feel.

I tried to go to every hospital appointment she had in oncology in Brisbane, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and some of the best memories I have are playing Yiftico with her. She beats me every time of course.

Now all I can think about are questions, I can’t live in this house anymore where are we going to go, how will I live without her because I’m such a fucking mummys boy, who will I confide in, why am I so self absorbed and all I can think about is what is going to happen to me, my sister.

My grandparents outlived my mum. There’s something wrong with that, its a terrible thing to say but I cant reconcile this. She was only 52, there are people living beyond 100 all the time, but because of our fallibility (yeah great intelligent design) she was chosen out of everyone to be infected with this shit. It couldn’t even wait till my sister and I were adults. Thats a terrible thing to say, i hate myself.

She was only telling me a few weeks ago that she wanted Spirit in the Sky played at her funeral. I imagined a time in the future when we were all old and grey and she had been cured and she had painted and played music and did all the things she said she’d do when she got better. Going back to Scotland

The chemotherapy she had to live with for all this time was getting worse and the side effects were not bordering extreme, they had surpassed it completely. She could barely lift her arms, her throat no no I’m not going to remember her like that. No more. She’s not in pain anymore.

The last conversation my dad, sister and I had as a family was downstairs where we were discussing moving the christmas tree upstairs to her room so she could celebrate. She always said that she couldn’t do anything a mum could do but the one thing she could do was be a supporter and someone I could talk to for anything.

I know she can’t read this, spirits and faerie tales and heaven and so forth, but if there is the smallest chance that somehow she can see me right now I want you to know I love you and I am so thankful for all you have ever done for me. You didn’t have one brain cell left, and you weren’t a bad mummy, a bad mummy is someone who doesn’t care about her children, mistreats them or abuses them. You were always there for me, you did everything I ever wanted you to to, and whether you knew or not, you were the best possible mummy I could have ever had and I love you. I love you so much. And I know you loved me too and did everything you could for me. I just wish I was saying this too you decades from now after we had been together for longer. I love you mummy.

She was even more than a mummy though. I lost my best friend.

I appreciate all the help you guys have given me over the years. The police and doctors have arrived and I can barely see the screen through my tears so I’ll just be submitting now. My mum believed, so for her I will say God Bless You Mummy, I hope you have finally found happiness at least more than you ever had in this life. I love you.