Uncle Luke

When we pulled into the driveway of Mag and Robin's home in Bexley North, Mag noticed a car following right behind.  "It's Luke" she informed me that the driver of the blue sedan right behind us was Luke Stanley, Robin and Mag's younger brother.  Luke is the de-facto paternal head of the Stanley family.  Shirley Stanley, Robin, Luke and Mag's mother, has 2 other children, Michael and Jeanette. Their father, Shirley's husband, died in the early 1980's.  Luke assumed those patriarchal responsibilities after the death of his father.  Luke with his wife, Anita, and their 2 children and assorted horses, dogs and birds live in another suburb some 45 minutes north of Sydney in a country setting.  Although I hadn't seen Luke in years his appearance was remarkably the same, albeit a little thicker (like most of us).  Luke made his way toward me and I immediately noticed the anguish on his face.  He embraced me like a brother and the two of us stood hugging in the driveway in Bexley North for a few minutes, neither of us wanting to let go of the other as we sobbed together.  Luke is one of those people who is imminently likable, somewhat bigger than life and the person you would want to lead the charge if you were called to battle, even if it was in the parking lot of the local pub (maybe especially so).  Once the first wave of the raw emotions passed Luke brought me up to the minute with some details I hadn't even considered.

While we were still standing in the front yard at what was now about noon time, Luke told me that Geoff's body was in the New South Wales Coroner's morgue, that the hospital was no longer able to hold him.  He also said that he had been told that an autopsy was going to be performed as a matter of law because it had been judged that Geoff had died a sudden death, the cause of which was not yet known.  He told me that the Coroner's office would be calling us in the next day, or so, to give us preliminary results of the autopsy and that we needed to make arrangements with a funeral home to pick up Geoff's body from the coroner once the autopsy was completed.  He also told me that it was required that a family member was needed to positively identify Geoff at the morgue and that he had already done that.  At that, Luke began to cry again.  I hadn't stopped.

I was thinking that some of the best times I ever had with Luke was when he was nearly Geoff's age and much like Geoff, he was the type of person nearly everyone loved, a genuinely caring, loving person.  How painful it must have been for Luke to take on the responsibility of confirming for all of us that which was known.  That Geoff had died, that his body lay in the morgue of the State Coroners office, that there was no mistaking it was really him.  Luke told me that it was possible for me to see Geoff's body in the morgue but that the Coroner's office didn't recommend it.  He relayed the suggestion from the coroner that I should wait until the funeral home had a chance to pick him up and prepare his body for viewing but that if I insisted and wanted to view Geoff's body before then, Luke would help me arrange it.  I agreed I would wait until we had a clearer understanding to the timing of events from this point before I would make that decision.  We made our way up the walk to the front door of Robin's home.

Truthfully, I'm not completely sure who all was in the front room when I walked through the doorway.  What was obvious were a few vases of flowers spread around the coffee table and on the dining room table.  I was immediately aware that Robin was not among the people in the front room.  Melissa came from the back of the house, we embraced and told each other how sorry we were.  I asked her how long she had been in Sydney, not knowing if it had been some days or hours.  She explained that Robin had phoned her after Geoff was admitted to hospital the previous day and that she had rushed to the Canberra airport to make the 1 hour flight to Sydney.  She had been at St. George Hospital when I received the initial call right through the time when it made no sense to be there any longer.  Joanne (Jo), Geoff's girlfriend, was sitting on an ottoman, her eyes ringed with the red hue of weeping that cannot be halted.  Jeanette, Robin's younger sister, was in the kitchen making cups of coffee and tea, which is non-stop in the culture.  I said hello to each of them and we all embraced each other in the way we would have hugged Geoff, had he just walked through that door.