Best and worst of the week

by REBECCA SPARROW

Childhood friends. A funeral. A baby. Some weeks pass by with hardly a blip.  And others, like this past week for me, are full of emotion. High highs and low lows.

More on that in a moment.

Welcome to Best and Worst  – our longest running and perhaps best-loved post where together we unpack some of our emotional baggage from the week that was. And forget Google, if you’ve got a dilemma, you know you’ll get unbiased advice right here.

As for me, well this week I flew to Brisbane for 20 hours to attend the funeral of the grandfather of one of my dearest and closest friends. It was interesting the reaction I received from people when I said I was traveling interstate for the funeral of a friend’s grandfather. People are surprised, as though someone losing a grandparent is perhaps not such a big deal.

But for my friend Nicola, her much loved grandfather was (as another friend described) her greatest protector.  He played a major role in her life – more father, than grandfather.  And I always knew that wherever I was living, I would go to his funeral to support her and because he is present in so many of my memories of Nic.

That funeral, where I saw some of my old school friends, was able to show off my beautiful Fin to them and also be there for Nic and farewell her beautiful grandfather was a mixture of some many feelings: sadness, elation, pride, heartbreak and much, much love.

In terms of Mamamia this week, my personal highlights were Jo Abi’s “Just One More Baby” .. yes I know it’s a sponsored post but as someone who is trying to decide if I should have another baby, I have to say I ate it up!   Meanwhile Jamila’s Open Post this week where she revealed what her first month at Mamamia has really been like (“In my old job, there was no ‘sparkle’ day”) put a huge smile on my face.

My low would have to have been the heartbreaking and shocking story of Andrea Pickett. The subject of ABC’s Four Corners earlier this week, it was a brutal and confronting story about domestic violence and how the authorities and their failure to act ultimately ensured Andrea’s death was inevitable. On a more superficial note, I was disappointed to hear that Channel 10 had axed The Circle (the last show is today). I was a guest on the show back in 2010, and I can tell you that there was a rare and very genuine camaraderie amongst the female hosts both on and off the set.

As for what’s OMM (on my mind) … I’m toying with the idea of writing another novel.  Clearly I’ve lost my mind.

Now it’s over to you.  What’s your week been like?  We’re here, ready to listen …