Jen Delaney - A Sister's Tribute

This is a story about an extraordinary woman, in extraordinary circumstances. How her courage, humour, dignity, integrity, love of family and her faith came to the fore. Her example and perseverance was amazing.

This is about my foster sister Jen who on the 22nd November 2004 lost her life to ovarian cancer. The journey we embarked on together started in 2002. It not only changed Jen's life journey but my life will never be the same again either.

Jen was first diagnosed when she was living in the UK. She had just married the love of her life!Jen (accompanied by her husband George) came home to Australia to have an operation and to start her treatment as well as having her family support. It was a very difficult 12 months with a lot more lows than highs, but we managed to stay focused, pushing through while leaning on each other and our faith. What I saw Jen endure during those 12 months no human should ever have to experience.

After 12 months, Jen returned to the UK to start life where she'd had to abruptly leave it before. There is so much to share, so many amazing memories made in the most devastating circumstances, some hilarious, like the day she went shopping for her coffin. You had to know her; she didn’t want her grieving husband to get ripped off, so she took matters into her own hands!! As Jen increasingly became weaker each day, I was to fly over to see her, but after a heart wrenching conversation with her, we both knew it would be too difficult to physically say goodbye to each other. For me to hug and kiss her, then let her go and walk away, was beyond my comprehension and capability. So we agreed that one day, out of the blue (when Jen felt it was time) she would ring me. The word goodbye was not too be mentioned, and how I would know that this was the last time we would speak, was that Jen was to say “I won’t be calling again”! The day I heard those dreaded words I dropped to the floor. I couldn’t speak, nothing would come out of my mouth. I was sobbing and trying to control my emotions (trying hard to mask this from Jen)... without any success!

Jen was always looking out for me, even in our last conversation she was telling me what to look out for in life, to be me, and go after my dreams.Her last words to me were “I’ll be waiting in heaven for you, make sure I see you there!... and then the phone disconnected... I learnt a lot through this experience about life and death and what’s really important and to let things fall to the ground that are insignificant.

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