When friends become angels

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When seventy families pulled together to support a friend in need last year, the result was nothing short of miraculous. Linda Peatling meets Jil’s Angels.

From the moment they met six years ago, the women gathering in Jil Wood’s kitchen have simply just clicked. All in their early forties, they hail from various parts of Australia and the globe, but one way or another, have found themselves living on Sydney’s Upper North Shore, and found each other when their daughters started kindergarten at Pymble Ladies College in 2001.

Like groups of friends the world over, they’re not quite sure why they work so well together, but they do know each woman brings a certain unspoken something to the group, which makes for a wonderful dynamic.

“Judy is the organiser and she’s always planning lovely things for us to do… we are so glad she moved here from America,” says Audrey, who grew up in India and is described by the others as the “wise, gentle, strong one, who always looks for the good in people”. Then there’s Chen, who moved to Australia from Malaysia 23 years ago and is the self-confessed “crier” of the group. “Oh, I cry at the drop of a hat,” she giggles, but the others see her as a ball of energy, with a big heart. The only two Australian-born girls are Tricia, who calls herself the “down-to-earth, no fuss, country girl”, and Ros, who they all agree is the nurturing one with an eye for detail and an unshakable level of calm. Last but by no means least is Jil, the other American, who is the creative force with a passion for life and a generosity known throughout their entire school community. 

It’s for Jil that they’re all here today, and today, thankfully, it’s a celebration. It’s the news that Jil is, for now, free of cancer, although she will continue with treatments for the next couple of years. This is the first celebration they’ve allowed themselves in 18 months since Jil’s breast cancer diagnosis, and it’s one they’re sharing with hundreds of people, because getting Jil and her family to this point has been a group effort like never before. “I couldn’t have come through this without them,” says Jil and by “them” she doesn’t just mean the women sharing her table today. She means more than 70 families and teachers who pulled together to support, protect and nurture her through the darkest days of her life.

It all began the day Jil told her girlfriends of her shocking diagnosis, and life, as they had known it, stopped for all of them. As each woman absorbed the information, she handled it in her own way: Audrey dropped everything to go to Jil and embrace her; Chen cried uncontrollably; Tricia went to her church immediately to dedicate a healing prayer to Jil; Ros remained calm and comforting; and Judy’s mind raced with all the things her best friend would have to go through in the days and months ahead. Amid the flood of emotions however, the most overwhelming feeling each woman experienced that day was an urge to do something – anything – to help Jil.

As the news spread through the school community the following day, this same thought also raced through the minds of countless others who expressed their willingness to help in any way possible. “It was like a tidal wave; you could see the mothers’ stunned faces in the car line at school and the teachers were in tears,” recalls Judy. “Everyone knew Jil’s parents lived overseas, so they knew she’d need help from her friends.”

Instinctively, Judy began to think about the best way to harness the community spirit she was witnessing in a way that would make a real difference for Jil and her family. “Chen and I went straight to Jil and [her husband] Rob and asked their permission to set up a support network to coordinate the dozens of friends who wanted to help,” she says. “Our goal was to free Jil from the mundane tasks of shopping, cooking and cleaning so she could focus her energy on her family and her health.”

Already weary from the task of breaking her news to friends and family, Jil took her close friends up on their offer and asked them to handle the ongoing communication process with both the school community and Jil’s family and friends abroad. “Judy is a natural-born organiser and Chen knows everybody in the community, so I knew they’d be great,” says Jil, who had begun to realise just how tough her road ahead was going to be when doctors told her the cancer had already spread to her bones. “It’s never easy to ask for help but I’d been a nurse, so I knew deep down I was going to need it... They’d even come up with ‘Jil’s Angels’ as a name for the support group.”

Judy and Chen started making a list of the parents who wanted to be a part of Jil’s Angels. “People were prepared to cook meals, take Mackenzie and Aubrey [Jil’s daughters] to and from school, walk the dog, pick up groceries, do some ironing, clean the house, transport Jil to and from treatments or just be on call,” recalls Judy, who then set up a meeting with Chen, Tricia, Ros and Audrey to figure out how it was all going to work. Before they did anything however, they also consulted Jil’s parents, Beverly and Carl. Beverly had taken leave of absence from her teaching job in Vietnam to be at her daughter’s side the moment she and Carl heard the devastating news. “We wanted to make sure Beverly was comfortable with everything we were planning, because she would be running the household when she was in Australia,” explains Chen.

With Beverly’s grateful blessing, it was soon decided that Judy would be responsible for fielding calls and sending emails to let everyone know how Jil was progressing, Chen and Ros would be in charge of organising the people who wanted to cook meals, Tricia would be in charge of creating a schedule of people to transport Jil and Rob’s daughters to school, sports and music when Rob was at work, and Audrey would be in charge of housekeeping and groceries.

As they talked over ideas and logistics, the group soon realised many things would not be as simple as they first appeared. “We wanted this to be as unobtrusive for Jil, Rob and the girls as possible, because we knew there was a danger of overwhelming the person we were all trying to help,” says Audrey. “Jil and Rob are such nice people that we knew they’d want to make anyone who came to the house feel welcome and send thank you notes to everyone, and that would defeat the purpose,” adds Tricia.

With this in mind, the women came up with systems that would maintain as much normality for the family over the coming months as possible, but would also free them up to concentrate on Jil’s treatment and nurturing each other. “We asked that people cooking meals pack them in disposable containers so Jil wouldn’t have to wash crockpots and try to return each piece of Tupperware to its rightful owner,” explains Ros. “We also asked them to include the name of the meal but no identifying information about who had made it, because we didn’t want Jil writing thank you notes to everyone.”

Then came the task of working out how and when the food would be delivered to the family. “If everybody started dropping off meals to Jil’s house, she would become overwhelmed, so we asked them to drop them off to the homes of two families who lived near the school,” explains Chen. Another generous family then donated a large freezer to the Wood family, which was set up in their garage, and once a week Chen or Ros would discreetly place the food in the freezer while the family was out. “I think that’s where the Jil’s Angels name started, because it often felt as though fairies or angels had been here,” smiles Jil.   

Like all well-laid plans, however, the system was not without its hiccups. “In the first few weeks we received so much spaghetti bolognaise it was coming out of our ears, but we were still very grateful for it,” laughs Jil. But that little problem was soon rectified by a polite email from Ros asking that people add a little variety to their offerings and, to her relief, the request was received with good humour. “Every caterer rose to the occasion with a wide variety of home-cooked meals,” says Ros.

Another system involved Jil’s daughters, Mackenzie and Aubrey, helping to select a few parents they felt comfortable with to take them to school, sport or sleepovers when Rob was unable to do so. “We wanted to maintain as much consistency in the children’s lives as possible. Jil had to be rushed to hospital four times during her treatment and Rob needed to be by her side, but they knew  with one phone call the girls would be taken care of,” says Tricia, who organised the transport roster and often took the girls for sleepovers herself.

Taking care of the house was also an area the women wanted to handle sensitively and, with Jil’s input, they decided a professional housekeeper would be more practical than having Rob or her friends do the housework. “Rob took as much time off as he could to care for Jil and the girls but he had to go back to work eventually, and the thought of having friends clean her house was too personal for Jil, so we asked Chen’s housekeeper if she would like some extra work,” says Audrey. “Jil was a bit reluctant at first because she’d always taken care of her own home but she was just too ill to do it. She relented in the end and it worked very well.”

During the first few weeks of Jil’s treatment, the women rallied to support their friend at every turn, but Jil began feeling guilty about all the time they were spending on her. “I wanted them to spread the load. They had their own families to take care of, so I went to Judy and told her how I was feeling,” she says. Ever the problem-solver, Judy devised a plan that would make both Jil and Rob feel more comfortable. “We came up with the idea of having ten ‘Ladies in Waiting’, who would be friends Jil trusted and felt comfortable sitting around in her pyjamas with,” she explains. “These women would be ‘on call’ for one day every two weeks just to be there if Jil needed anything while Rob was at work; even if it was just a shoulder to cry on.”

With a flexible schedule that usually only involved a few hours for each woman every fortnight, the 10 Ladies in Waiting gladly came to Jil’s side. “They were absolutely wonderful and it made me feel better to know that Judy and the girls could just concentrate on the areas they were in charge of,” says Jil. “I remember calling one Lady in Waiting, who is the most gentle, polite and gracious person I know, to deliver my urine sample to the hospital for me, because I was literally unable to get out of bed and Rob was at work. She just took the discreetly unmarked brown bag without batting an eye… looking back, it probably made for one of our most intimate and comical moments!”

As Jil’s condition worsened, the support escalated with countless gestures of kindness that touched Jil in ways she could never have imagined. “I’ll never forget how those little things made me feel; they probably saved my life,” she smiles. “The husbands also took real care of Rob for me and dragged him out for a game of golf or a card night or just a beer or two when he needed it.”

The little school community continued to rally for the duration of Jil’s treatment with all the energy and dedication they’d had from the beginning. “I think it was simply a case of many hands making light work,” says Judy, who remained at the helm and kept everyone informed of Jil’s recovery the whole way through. “We had so many people making food, for instance, that each person only had to make one dish each month and it was the same sort of thing for the transport roster, the Ladies in Waiting, and the management team, so none of us felt overloaded.” 

Everyone agrees however, that having a leader and a management team helped to maintain the momentum. “Without someone managing things people would be coming and going, duplicating efforts, not knowing what was really needed,” says Tricia. “And you need someone who doesn’t have a big ego but knows how to manage people and delegate, and luckily Judy is all of that,” adds Ros.

Judy reluctantly accepts her friend’s compliments, but insists it was the unconditional generosity and dedication of each and every friend in the support network that made Jil’s Angels work. “All we did was harness the overwhelming support for Jil and give it some structure, so everyone got to utilise their talents and feel they were contributing to Jil’s recovery... I’d often call Jil just to share some of the emails about the positive impact her courage was having on everyone involved,” she says.

As the women now reflect on 18 months they will never forget, they know they are forever changed in more ways than one. “This has taught us about cancer; it’s taught us about survival and friendship, and it’s taught us about the strength of our community,” says Audrey.

“It’s good to know that in such a hectic society communities are still just below the surface… all people need is permission and some guidance and they will go to great lengths to help one another,” adds Judy. “If this could happen to Jil, it could happen to any one of us, and if it did, I know our community would be ready to do it all again.”

Words: Linda Peatling. Photography: Sam McAdam. Hair: Heath Massi. Make-up: Jay Jay Rauwenhoff.