Kylie Gillies is in 'The Shift'. It's the moment when you realise things have changed — your parents were giants, and now they're not. Your children were tiny, and now they're not.
Recently, Gillies found an old notebook from years ago when her two boys were little. When she opened the pages, she burst into tears.
"At that time, I would have to be getting up for work very early for The Morning Show. We were lucky enough to have a nanny that would come from around 7am to midday. We had a book that would sit on the kitchen bench and I would write in all the details to tell the nanny," Gillies tells Mamamia's MID podcast.
"I would write down all the details of the day into this book for the nanny. It made me cry reading over it again. It said stuff like, 'Gus has a sports carnival today. The green t-shirt I washed last night is hanging up in the laundry. He will need cut-up oranges. You'll find the oranges in the bottom of the crisper. Please cut the oranges into eighths."
"Here I was, this crazy woman hanging on so tightly. I could feel the tension in the pages. But at the time it felt like the be-all-and-end-all if this 10-year-old boy didn't wear his green t-shirt to his sports carnival."
Right now, Gillies' sons — who are 21 and 19 — are forging their own paths. She says it's been a major adjustment.
"I'm slowly figuring it out. You feel like you're going insane, you feel clingy and needy. I do think I hold on too tight. I was speaking to one of my other mum friends and she said she had felt the same thing," she notes.
The other component of the sandwich generation Gillies has experienced is seeing your parents need you more.
Growing up, Gillies says her parents worked tirelessly to give her the best childhood they could.
"My dad worked two jobs so that they could afford flute lessons for me. My mum worked part-time too. I get what it's like not to be the person who is born into wealth or privilege."
As the years went on, she started to have "a very mid-life experience".
"I was looking after my kids, supporting my family, my parents were getting older. Then my dad got sick. My mum and dad left their family home, where they'd lived since they were married. When dad got sick, they made the decision to move to Queensland to be closer to my sister, so she could support them."
In 2021, at the age of 91, Gillies' father passed away.
Devastatingly, she wasn't able to be there to say goodbye in person.
Watch: the trailer for Holly Wainwright's MID podcast. Post continues below.
At the time, COVID-19 border restrictions between NSW and Queensland meant she was unable to see her dad in his final days. Gillies also couldn't attend his funeral in person. Instead, herself, her husband and their two boys watched the funeral livestream from their lounge room.
She tells MID that grief has been complex to navigate in the years since his passing. But there's also been beautiful moments of discovery.
"My mum and dad were married for over 55 years. In the 1970s, my dad gifted mum a loose stone sapphire. It remained wrapped in tissue in a little brown envelope in mum's drawer for decades," says Gillies.
She asked her mum about the story behind the loose stone, and her mum replied, "Well, we're not the sort of people to get jewellery made. There were always other priorities I guess."
After Gillies' father passed away, she and her sister decided to get the sapphire stone made into an engagement ring for their mum, in memory of her late husband. Their mother was elated.
"She wears it every day. We only wish dad was here to see it too."
Gillies credits her kids and her husband — who she has been with for over 35 years — for supporting her through it all.
"My husband Tony once said to me, 'If something good happens to you, I want to be the first person you want to tell. Or if something bad happened, I would want to be that person for you too.' He's my person. There's good times and bad times, and life can be sh**ty."
She adds: "Maybe it's luck. Maybe it's your ability to tolerate. Maybe I have a high tolerance. But it's also choosing the right person. He is a good person. We have a shared outlook on life."
You can listen to this full conversation on MID now.
Feature Image: Instagram @kyliegillies.
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