R.I.P.
Terri-Lee Rowe 31.07.1979 - 29.09.2011
Affectionately known as "Texsy"
aged 32 years
Tragically taken in an accident.
You will be in all of our hearts for eternity Texsy.
When someone you love or who you are very close to passes from this world ... dies, it is so hard in the beginning. You cannot even think straight and can barely think to be able to exist to get to the end of the day. This isn't going to go away in a hurry either. Each day I will get up and feel what ever it is I feel, and each day the shock will dull a little with time. It is not going to happen straight away though. I have lost my mother and my father and I have lost many friends along the way which is sad. It takes years before the grief lifts to a really manageable point.
On Friday when Montana called me and told me about Texsy's tragic demise, I at that moment lapsed immediately into a state of shock. I really didn't think I could breath properly, Montana was on the other end of the telephone and I was alone here. My partner Brice had taken our dog for a walk and I was supposed to be getting into the shower. He took much longer than usual. I was so distraught. I tried to call Cathy, to know avail. My neighbor Ian came home and I rushed into his arms as I surely felt I was going to pass out. He spoke to Montana on the phone and he took me inside and comforted me until Brice got back with the dog.
I just could not stop crying and crying and crying. I had to think clear enough to make a decision that I could not do radio that day. I could barely see or think. I didn't think I could drive. I really knew I could not talk on air and be Miss pleasant! No not this time! I am good at putting on brave fronts but not this time. I immediately planned a fire at the beach.
This is what I do when I am happy or sad. I always want to light a fire, So we did. We started to walk out along the walkway to the beach and my body just hurt so much I was having difficulty walking out! We went home and got the car and drove to Hungry Head, one of my favorite places. We walked onto the beach and went around under the face of the cliff. Together Brice and I piled wood upon wood and lit the fire in our friend Texsy's memory and to enable the smoke to pass over me and try to heal me a little. We just cried for her and looked into the stars. I was sure she would just turn up. Silly hey.
The next day I was numb. I could not think straight and I just spoke to lots of people and took endless phone calls. I got angry a little bit.
On the third day after this tragic occurrence I woke up really angry. I wanted revenge and I wanted people to pay for my tragic loss. The key here is "my" my tragic loss. It is normal to get angry when someone you love is so needlessly taken away. I do think it is a different sort of grief involved with this sort of death. Just writing death and Texsy in the same sentence doesn't seem right. My feelings were in a bad shape.
My thoughts once again were darting all over the place, back to times in the past, different events that had occurred. The passing of our dear friend Kim last year. How that tragedy changed all of our lives forever, and how that changed the way that I was allowed to be a friend to my friend beautiful Texsy. Kim lost his life and sadly as a really outside consequence still of that same black time; sadly now Texsy has also lost her life as well.
I loved her so much. I have had many friends and good acquaintances over the long years of my long life. No one touched me like Texsy did. I never wanted to call someone my daughter like her. We were so close for so, so long. We worked together along side of each other in the Garlic. She was a star in the paddock, always there, always dependable, always so enthusiastic about growing things. I had found someone who thought similar to me. She was just so beautiful. No one could work wearing the cloths that Texsy did. She was a classic.
As we became very close she confided in me with so much of what had troubled her soul. She had not had the happiest of starts in life. She lost her dad and grieved to the day she herself passed for him.
She ran away at the young age of 14. She was hanging out with her cousin Janine and her partner and all of their friends. She remembered her cousin Janine telling her about me. She told me all this after we were friends. She had, like me tried to find love in all of the wrong places.
Our young lives were so so similar. It was really strange as I was exactly 2o years older than she was. We shared so many of the same views on life and how it works for the not so lucky in life. How life can be cruel and heartless. She shared with me stories that I know no one knows of. I know so much about her, I loved her dearly. The more she told me the more I loved her and wished that things could have been different for this girl who had a heart as big as they come.
Texsy was at times so naive that it hurt me, it was just her beautiful innocence. I always tried to show her anything a mother would show or tell a daughter. She said I was like a mother and a friend to her. She said many, many times that she wished I was her mother. I was so touched that she would even think this way. I was honored to recommend her for anything as she was the best worker I had ever come across besides myself. I consider myself an honorable employee and she was the same!
We had so much fun working together on the garlic, we worked for Peter and for Paul. That in itself lent to us much humor. She was always ready at the crack of dawn 5am and off we would go. Laughing and loud as we both were. Turning up to the paddock in the dawn before the sun come up. Celebrating the absolute joy of just being so blessed to be where we were at that moment. We talked so much working together and doing it tough in the blazing sun. So many happy memories I have of these times. She was my partner, my co-ee, my best buddy, we just loved each other.
Tex was always there for me during the toughest times in the last 6 years while I was separating and divorcing my then husband of 25 years. She knew him and his family well. It gave us an even stronger bond. Her grandmother and my mother in law were best friends.
We both knew what it was like to have to fight for everything you ever got in life and that it isnt a pleasant place out there at times.
My children grew to love her as well, especially Montana who Texsy doted on and was so impressed with everything that I tried to do for her. Her own little self inside was screaming each time wishing she had these same opportunities and the love that I had for my children. She saw the unfairness dealt to me from being the Non - local in the disastrous relationship I was fleeing. She was one of my rocks through that time.
We used to get pretty wasted together drinking. Both of us also sharing a massive love of bourbon. We did drink our share that is for sure. We both breathed a sigh of relief when Bulliet stopped producing the 9% cans here in Australia, we were surely addicted to getting so smashed and falling on each other in a pile and laughing! After not smoking billies for years I had my first billies with texsy lol. funny as, and then the rest is history, we were on a mission to have as much fun as was humanly possible while keeping it all together. Oh well that is glossing over quite a few years there.
When Brice came home from jail, Texsy was with me when we were talking to him many times. We were both in effect single at the time and we wondered who he liked .. we felt he liked one of us. I may just have been the more forward one. Brice had a special place in his heart for this girl and I can completely understand as he would not want anyone to ever hurt her ever. We all hung out together for about 8 months and when it happened finally that Brice and I hooked up...She was over the moon! When Brice and I started living together she was ecstatic for us both.
We had many funny times, New years eve of 2008/ 09 was one of the weirdest funniest times, I will always smile but now the smile will probably turn to a bucket of tears! Oh dear, oh dear.
Texsy, right now ... Im talking to you, I cannot believe this is true, I can't believe you are gone from here forever, ffs why, I just keep asking why? I am so angry! Please Texsy send an angel to guide me too, I will need it now really strong! I am over come with grief and sorrow. One because your gone and two because I don't know if you were hurting! I do hope it didn't hurt my love. I hope it was so swift and that you felt no pain while God reached out and grabbed you! I cannot even bear to think about any of this my love. Please do send as many angels as you think are necessary. Please sleep well. I know you love sleep. You will do this better than me I am sure!
Yes see I cannot help but talk to her, she was not allowed to fraternize with me on the outside in reality, her boyfriend Heber forbid her to see me anymore from the time that our other friend Kim and garlic farmer lost his life. Another tragedy we were all involved in deeply. Her boyfriend didn't heed my warnings and Texsy almost met with drama however the drama I was concerned would happen did happen and he lost the plot completely taking a girl we knew hostage and assaulting her. This same thing could have happened to Tex, this is what I feared happening. I didn't want that girl to go to bed another night in her life with shit like what could eventuate from this situation.
I was so angry with him because he would not listen to me. The idiot never came back an apologized to me and said he was sorry for doubting me when all came to pass and then Kim hung himself, and Texsy was forbidden to have anything to do with me unless in secret. In the end she was so sick of him dictating the crap that he did and she added me back on face-book and we started a brand new relationship. One that was guarded because of the situation.
Recently for my birthday we celebrated going to the Bliss n Eso concert together. We were planning on ridding ourselves of unemployment through planting an organic garden. She finally got a job at a Nursing home in Nambucca Heads because of the shining references that Paul gave her. He told them they would be mad not to employ her!
Texsy finally had it all going for her. She agreed a license was on the agenda next. I had promised to teach her to drive. I told her I could teach her but I could not teach my own kids. That was funny, It was because I had worked with her and I knew her strengths and I trusted she would listen to me. I didn't trust my kids would do the same. I was so looking forward to teaching you to drive Tex. It would have given me credibility as a good teacher, never mind a car don't matter now!
I will endeavor to get through this time and be a better person because I have known you and had you in my life to teach me the things you have about taking care of myself. No one ever did what you did Texsy. No one ever pampered me like you did! I will miss you like crazy! I am feeling that God gave us this year that we could not hang out so much so that I would be able to deal with this. God saw it coming, we didn't. I always told you God was real. This only cemented my faith, as for once I haven't had near enough friendship with you yet! We were going to go to Uluru together remember. Oh Texsy! I love you always.
This photographic inclusion here was taken approximately 14 hours before the last time I touched the comfort of you soul close to me.. please stay in some way but also go and be free. Stay in my memory and send your angels to help me!
Other articles:
http://mezza-onthehill.blogspot.com/2011/10/to-my-dearest-texsy-death-is-nothing-at.html
Image by Dom Oakes friend.
