The car is packed and ready for a camping trip on the coast.
She hesitates, just for a moment.
There is no way the fire will get into the suburbs.

The day is hot, and suddenly the sky is black.
Smoke fills the air, sirens wail.
Canberra is alight – people are evacuated – houses and lives are lost.

Her father, in his late 80s, gets into his car.
Worried about her home, he drives towards the roadblock,
but is turned back. He calls her.
“Come home”.

They pack up the campsite and head back to the unknown.

Her two cousins, both volunteer firefighters, leave their own homes and families and respond to the call.
They fight hard, and long.
Exhausted, they confirm that her house is lost.
There is nothing left.

The house is rubble.
The belongings all gone.
A week later she sifts through the ashes
…and rescues something that once belonged to her mother.
It is almost unrecognisable, but it is now the only tangible reminder of her.

Family and friends rally round, donating supplies, food, shelter.
A community has been devastated
friends have died
people grieve together
…and vow to rebuild.

Marriages fail.
Lives have been changed forever.
People leave the community
…the loss and memories too difficult to bear.

Her husband is building their new house.
She doesn’t know it yet, but as she replants her garden
and attempts to rebuild her life, something inside her is changing.
The stress has been enormous, and her body has responded in an unexpected way.

Months later she discovers it.

Lump.
Scan.
Biopsy.
Cancer.
Surgery.
Triple negative.
Metastatic.
Chemotherapy.
Radiation.

Each word is like a bullet, an insult, another blow, when she has already been devastated by so much loss. She holds her family together.
Vows to survive.

I am in charge of the day chemo unit.
She is my husband’s cousin. We are a small family, closely connected.
I love her like a sister
…and now I am also her nurse.

I schedule her treatment.
I hold her hand a colleague connects the line.
The chemicals drip, drip, drip.
We cry together.

Every three weeks, we repeat.
We spend many hours talking, sharing hopes, fears and tears.

Her beautiful long wavy black hair disappears.
She struggles as the chemicals work inside her.
Then the radiation burns her skin.
She pushes through.
Continues to be a mother, wife, daughter, friend, cousin.
Taking one day at a time, until finally the treatment is finished.

She thinks she has another chance
her house is completed
and life slowly begins again.
This, she thinks, is a new beginning.

I celebrate with her briefly.
And then I watch, and wait.

This, I think, is too good to be true.
I know the odds.
There is more to come.

Photo credit Patrick Hendry@worldsbetweenlines on Unsplash