Dialogue: Best bits of living found outside the comfort zone

By SANDY BURGHAM

Last Wednesday I was moved to reflection.

The catalyst was not Waitangi Day, the significance for which eludes many New Zealanders. Neither was it Bob Marley's birthday which strikes a much deeper chord for many.

It was the passing of a much-loved heroine of the mass market audience, Angela D'Audney.

Like Princess Di, D'Audney was someone we didn't even know we liked that much until she left us.

It was when she became terminally and publicly ill that many people, myself included, began to consider how remarkable she was.

I have grown up watching D'Audney from afar, and yet her final chapter as relayed through the media was the most fascinating and inspirational.

It was not so much her pragmatic openness about her many career low points, or her ability to live an enriched, creative and fulfilling life as a single in a world of couples, but more her apparent determination to go about celebrating her own life while she was still around to appreciate it.

Not only did she manage to have her autobiography published - self-recognition of her wonderful life - but she reportedly managed in the last week to have one last joy ride in her favourite car, sip champagne, and spend time with close friends and beloved pets.

She seemed to squeeze every last drop out of every second given to her, whereas most of the healthy among us don't find time to do this on a good day.

Most of us who are alive, healthy and full of ego are never fully present at the best celebrations of our own lives.

We are too young to remember the adoration of our birth.

One's wedding is, as one friend puts it, an opportunity to play a lead role in the mother-in-law's play, slavishly taking her direction in the hope it will all be fully funded.

And, of course, if you can remember your 21st, it can't have been that good.

Then there's the funeral, where people now go to creative lengths in selecting favourite songs, flowers, and flattering photos to enable the dead, somewhat pointlessly, to go out with a bang.

If only half as much effort was expended in the week before the death, then the deceased could also have enjoyed basking in the adulation.

While I have heard that D'Audney was "carpe diem" in her approach to life as well as her impending death, we often read of those who have reached new heights of self-awareness and expression only after a disease has allowed them to do so. It's like those people who have created their dream life only after they have experienced the devastation of redundancy.

It leaves me wondering why the healthy have to wait for something bad to happen before they reassess their lives or take action. We have read all the books and know all the adages about stopping to smell the roses, yet often we need an excuse to allow us to do this.

Thus it took a temporary stay of execution during his ninth life, for me to patch things up with our elderly family cat last week. He has now never had it so good as I make up for lost time, since in the last few years a great portion of her share of my love and affection has been redirected toward the kids.

While I was pregnant she slept purring curled around my belly, but later she was banned from indoors at night should she in a fit of uncharacteristic jealousy smother the new baby in the bassinet.

While I sense Scruffy's cynicism ("Don't think you can assuage your guilt that easily, I have been eating my meals outside for five years") I am glad of the opportunity to make amends and wish I had seen the light sooner.

Now everyone will forget anything unkind they have said about D'Audney, start bemoaning our beloved Judy Bailey (why can't she be more like Angela) and generally wish she were still around.

Some will be kicking themselves that they didn't find it within themselves to write her a little note, but all is not lost. There are plenty of others out there who are suffering who might also appreciate some support, comfort or company. Maybe it's the catalyst people need to do something uncharacteristically generous or touchy-feely (like this column, for instance).

But most of us won't, simply because, despite the monotony, life is so much cosier in the comfort zone.