marieclaire.com.au (^) | 75
EMOTIONAL
ABOVE Jodie
and her mum
Susan in
France before
the tumour
diagnosis.
LEFT Jodie
toasting her
mum at her
wedding, two
days after she
passed away.
Eventually, when I finished university, I moved
back in with her at age 21 and we became inseparable.
She was different, she had softened. We spent all our
time together; we liked to have a casual drink and
talk shit about people. She called me “baby girl”
because I was her youngest. Every year, for the past
10 years, we’ve holidayed in the South of France
together. We first travelled there when I was a
teenager and I have so many happy memories
there. It is home to us and where we felt ourselves.
It was at the beach in France in August last
year that I first noticed the lump. Lying next to
me on a sunbed wearing a swimsuit, I spotted an
ugly, bulbous, purple lump under Mum’s arm. It
looked irritated and uncomfortable. “What the
fuck is that?” I asked, shocked. “Oh, don’t worry
about it, it’s fine,” she said, covering herself with
her scarf. When I kept pushing her, she told me
she thought it was a sebaceous cyst. She’d had cysts
removed from under her arm before, so I didn’t
overthink it, but I still made her go to a doctor
four days later – despite her protests.
After having tests at the Princess Grace Hospital
in Monaco, we found out Mum had a tumour and
needed to have an urgent biopsy. Mum made me
promise not to tell my other siblings until she knew
what was happening. She was adamant; it was her
business to tell and it wasn’t my place to say anything.
Within a week, Mum was flying back to Sydney
early with me, cutting her holiday short for the first
time in her life. At home, a biopsy revealed she had
stage-four melanoma cancer. It had metastasised and
was moving through her lymph nodes. When she got
the diagnosis, Mum didn’t even cry. She was more
worried about breaking the news to my siblings
and how it would affect everybody else.
M
y mum Susan was vivacious,
charismatic and the life of
the party. She was always
the first person on the dance
floor. Mum was loyal as
anything and incredibly
protective of her family. You
always knew when she was
coming because you could hear the jingling of her
gold bracelets. She was immaculately polished, but
blue-collar to the bone. She was black and white,
hard and fast. She was all about authenticity; if you
weren’t real, you couldn’t hang out with Susan.
My relationship with my mum was challenging
when I was younger. She owned a fashion business
with my dad and worked from 6am to 8pm most
days, with overseas trips to Paris, New York and
London every six weeks. I was the youngest of four
kids (Ashley, 45, Sally, 42, and Josh, 32), and until
I was 13 I was effectively raised by nannies.
My parents separated when I was 17 and when
my dad moved out, it was just me and Mum in the
house. Her drinking escalated and it was really
intense. She wasn’t a nice drinker. When I came back
from a gap year, I moved straight out. I feel a lot of
guilt about that now; I left her completely on her own.
“When Mum fnd t she had
cancer, she didn’t cry. She was more
woied abt teling my sibling”
sharon
(sharon)
#1