Ethereum life staff healing stage
Meticulously she brings life to an exquisite bunch of roses on her large, symbolic canvas. One patient, who Margaret says she will never forget, was surrounded by such a variety of flowers that her room looked like a florist shop.
Under her bed Margaret found a bunch of roses that had been overlooked, missed out on a vase and started to dry out.
Margaret and the woman agreed that although the flowers had nearly died, they were still beautiful. Margaret believes that health professionals are deeply affected by working in palliative care.
She is working on an exhibition for the Australian Palliative Care Conference in Adelaide in September which will explore the process of dying and the effect it has on staff. It is very difficult. And patients are looking for that one nurse or doctor who looks like they have connected with them and understand them; that they are a little bit special to them and they put that extra effort in.
We are forever trying to get that balance. You have to remain professional in intensely emotional situations but obviously, you are affected by it because you are human. Margaret is working on an ethereal palliative-care room for the exhibition with walls of silk that move freely in a circle of suspended images. Another is of a woman whose husband was so unwell she could no longer interact with him. She sat at the end of his bed for hours, holding their dog as though it was a baby.
Margaret will also present a short film in which she interviews consultants, nurses and allied health staff about palliative care patients they will never forget. They talk about the impact those patients have had on them personally and professionally. It is profoundly beautiful and I feel it is a privilege to hear some of these stories. It is a conversation with self.
But then, Mo found himself in the middle of a national nightmare: There's something a little ethereal about Mo. He's dark-skinned, but — thanks to some striking contact lenses — blue-eyed, with hair that is both short and long and a big laugh that belies a life filled with tragedy.
Mo came to Norway with his mother at the age of 7 to escape the civil war in Somalia, a conflict that cost most of his family their lives. Mo escaped, but his best friend — whom he'd met in a refugee camp as a child — was among the 69 people murdered. What Mo will say about the tragedy is that there's one song that helped him get through it. It's not that the song holds any secret cure for grief; it's essentially about having patience. But that's what worked. And for Mo, a lifelong performer, that means getting back on stage.
Soon, he'll compete against 14 other Norwegians for the chance to represent his country at Eurovision, that glittery tribute to song that, for a few days each year, seeks to unite Europe around a musical popularity contest.
And starting a public discussion about Norway's national tragedy was never the point.