Ashley Thams

Palliative care is tough. The saying I say to people is as soon as you try and take responsibility for another life you will be faced with an option of something bad or something worse, you can’t navigate a path that’s always going to be the right way because life is not clear cut. There’s no manual. You can be quite hard on yourself and I’ve experienced this a lot where you want everything to be as comfortable as possible for people and ultimately it’s not going to be a comfortable process. It’s dying.

 

I moved to Lismore to study in 2011 and I did my Bachelor of Health Science. I graduated from my degree in 2016 and fell in love with Lismore and basically decided Lismore is my home. The people, it’s like no other place, even after the floods, I feel like we’re open to connection more than other places are. It has its sprinkle of chaos but the community is incredible.

 

I managed care homes during the pandemic in the UK, in Bristol and then in Belfast. I was one of the lucky Australians to get a flight back into Australia. I returned in 2021.

I worked at REDinc and it was the best job of my entire life. I remember thinking, I should pay to be going to work. I remember when I got my first paycheque at REDinc and that week I’d been to drama and dance and music. I’d played drums with the most amazing people and I couldn’t believe I was getting paid for it.

 

I had planned to travel the world in 2019 which is when the pandemic kicked off and the fires were happening here in 2019. I went from Germany to Bavaria to the UK and got a visa there. Managing Palliative Care homes was an amazing experience working with a multi disciplinary team basically problem solving as everything changes. I went into lockdown in Germany and the UK and as soon as I got back to Lismore we went into lockdown. I realised how important connection was because the pandemic was so divisive and we all felt so isolated and disconnected and nursing homes in particular got really impacted. It was a tough time.

 

After the flood here in Feb 2022 I thought Lismore needs more connection. I went to Woodford for New Years and ran into Phil Blackman who I used to work with at REDinc. Can I go on the record? I love Phil. He was camping with these boys with Down Syndrome and I had the blessing of being able to camp with him. That was my New Years and it filled my heart.

 

I went to the letter booth at Woodford. It was originally started in New York called the Anonymous Letter Writing Project. They do it every year in Woodford and people dress up in Postie outfits and deliver the letters. Apparently the pizza guy gets 25 letters from kids thanking him for his pizzas. There’s a wall there with letters for everyone based on what’s written on the envelope. I was questioning things about life as we have post flood in Lismore and I went up to the board and saw a letter saying, ‘To someone having a rough time’ so I picked that one and I had a cry. It was so special and what stood out the most was it said, ‘When you’re having a really rough time that’s when you have to be there for yourself the most and your talents shouldn’t be wasted and the world needs you, I need you so get out there’. I was like Yes! All I needed to provide was paper and envelopes for Lismore.

 

That brings us to now. I’ve done a lot of meditation in the past and I’ve done Vipassana. I wouldn’t call myself a Buddhist by any means but I do think it’s important to be present in life. I think journalling does that for us. Typing on a laptop or phone is not the same as pen and paper. Because you are not writing to anyone in particular, you are journalling with the intention of someone else reading it. There’s a moment where you are writing it and there’s a moment where people hand me an envelope. I remember everyone who has handed me an envelope with their letters and then there’s a moment where someone else finds that letter and reads what’s written on the envelope and picks it. The more I do it, the more I learn about us.

 

I now have a stand at Hemlocks in Woodburn which is a cafe / bookshop. After Valentine’s Day the stores throw out the Hallmark card stands so I asked for one at the Square and I use it to put the letters on. The lovely manager at the Lismore Farmers Market has said I can put a stand there on Saturday mornings. I like to encourage people if they take one to put one back. There is a degree of concern that content could potentially be harmful. I check over the letters quickly so if there is a blue stamp on the envelope they’ve been checked. That was Marny’s suggestion for the Saturday market which I completely support. One thing that has happened since I’ve been checking is it made me realise that the vast majority are so full of heart. Obviously Marny has a duty of care but I’ve not had to remove any letters. I’ve noticed to in this day and age it’s hard to get people off their phone to put pen to paper to begin with so there’s a filtration process of the types of people who participate.

 

Hemlocks have a sign explaining the blue stamps and they are fine with having sealed letters. There is a disclaimer there. I try to get people to be as explanatory as they can on the front of the envelope because then the person who picks your envelope gets a taste, kind of like the back of a book. People can find what they’re looking for. Lots of kids have participated so I put a monster sticker on those so other kids know. Just recently a lady picked an envelope which said, To somebody feeling overwhelmed and uncertain. She read it and said it was written how her sister talks to her. One lady asked if I would do a singles one as a way of people to meet each other. She was retired and said, I want to write on mine, To a dark, handsome, retired man and they could include their phone number if they wanted to. Ultimately the one thing my heart desires out of this is starting this domino effect of connection. I had a Mum here in The Quad sit and write 3 pages – To a struggling Mum who feels hopeless and at the end of hers she said, you’re not alone.

 

I worked at St Josephs Nursing home here and St Vincents and I would love to get letters going in and out of there. I’m doing my Masters in Project Management and I understand there’s protocols in place but I would love to start a pen-pal project in and out of the nursing homes. I cared for a man called Reginald Baxter at St Vincents. Reggie owned the news-agency on Molesworth St back in his middle age years. Reggie told me the story of how he lied to get into the war at 16. Mind you Reggie was hot stuff when he was younger, his photos around his room were pretty all right (laughs). Reggie was a cheeky man. Anyway, he went to war and got shot 3 times. He fell down and he said the sound of the hail of bullets went silent and all he could hear was the birds. A man carried him for 3 days back to the bunker. Reggie survived, came back to Lismore and had a family. Reggie was in his 50’s in the News agency and this man came in and Reggie started to cry and the man started to cry. The man who carried him was in his 20’s when Reggie was a teen in the war and here he was in his shop in Lismore. That story always stood out in my memory. I saw his scars when I showered him and he only had one leg. He was a cool old dude.

 

My Nan is 94 and I was cuddling her in bed this morning. I’m her 10th grandchild and she has 19 great grandchildren. She opened a letter this morning. It was very special.

 

I met a man at the Benchtop cafe and he told me his story. I knelt down beside him and asked him the same question I always ask. Would you like to write a letter to a person you’ll never meet, like a message in a bottle? He told me that he suffered from alcoholism for many years. He said, he was in Lennox Pub and an angel came to him, a man who worked for the Red Cross. The man said, I’ll get you an apartment in Lismore and we can help you get clean. He said he was still drinking when he came to Lismore but this man bought him a fridge and he realised that the man was serious. He’s been clean for 5 years now and his latest results from the doctor were perfect. He wrote a letter, To somebody on a long, rough road and he put his number at the end if the person who reads it needs to talk to somebody. I love that saying, ‘Rarely can you heal in isolation, it’s through connection.”

 

(Photos in Comments of Ethan, Harper and Jordan with their letters and Zara in yellow.)