7 May 2020

When my brother-in-law died while surfing last month, it presented a lot of challenges to us all.

Personally, the inability to immediately rush down south to be there with my sister and the family, and to not be at the funeral, had a huge impact.

I thought a lot about what we could do – sending flowers, cards, food etc. Eventually I activated my one true skill set, and went online shopping.

I found a Perth company that would send a gift hamper, checked with them to make sure they could deliver through the regional barricades and once I had approval, I hunted through their online selection to see what would be best.

There was this box that basically said it was the “Best of WA” and contained wine, olive oil, chocolate, coffee, and other nibbles tastefully boxed. I had a look at the photo and thought “perfect”. Credit card details and delivery address added, and job was done!

It actually got delivered on the day of the funeral. My sister texted me pictures of the unopened boxes before they got ready for their Covid-restricted funeral gathering. I was quietly patting myself on the back for my luck in having managed delivery and flukey timing so perfectly.

Later on that evening, after the obviously heart breaking day of goodbyes, my sister sent me another photo of the bottle of wine that was included with the hamper.

The picture on the front of the bottle proudly bears the label The Box, and the image is of a coffin shaped box, in amongst what appears to be waves. 🙈

Fortunately, my family know me quite well, and were able to justify this as “just the sort of thing Heather would do”. I was, quite frankly, mortified – but incredibly thankful they didn’t appear to take offence.

My online shopping skills need a bit more work. I will set myself practise sessions daily to make sure this sort of rookie error never happens again.