Kerri-Anne one of many
TELEVISION viewing has significantly changed in recent years.
Streaming systems, such as Netflix and Stan have gained popularity, meaning free-to-air TV (and its sponsors) now has a considerably diminished share of the viewing audience.
Consequently, the Logies awards last Sunday may not have generated the widespread public interest of yesteryear.
However, there was still widespread interest in the induction into the Logies’ Hall of Fame of veteran host and performer Kerri-Anne Kennerley, just the third female television personality to be so honoured in the award’s 34-year history.
The accolades were considerable indeed. Her sense of humour, her humility, her honesty, her talent and her integrity were all recognised as components of the honour bestowed upon her.
But there is an additional and substantial element in Kerri-Anne’s life which highlights a special human quality — a quality thankfully demonstrated in the lives of many.
Of course, not all of us have to call upon this quality.
We might never be aware that we possess it unless circumstances demand that we call upon it. But such circumstances could arise tomorrow, or at any time. And if, or when, that “special quality” is required of us, then Kerri-Anne Kennerley could certainly be a role model for us.
Her induction into the Hall of Fame was for her 50-year-plus contribution to Australian television.
But recently she has managed and embraced the life-changing fork-inthe-road thrust upon her when John Kennerley, her husband of 40 years, became a quadriplegic following a freak accident about 12 months ago.
Kerri-Anne’s TV career came to a screeching halt and she has since devoted her life to caring for John. In so doing, she has become one of the higher profile people to take on a role she shares with far more Australians than most of us might think.
For she is a “carer”, and specifically, a carer of a loved one with a health condition so serious that it may well be lifelong, and for which substantial recovery (let alone any return to “normality”) may prove unattainable.
Those amazing Australians who give daily, self-sacrificing care to a loved one surely deserve a place in a Hall of Fame of their own.
Some of them are watching over a husband or wife whose quality of life, and even life itself, is being slowly squeezed out of them because of a degenerative illness like multiple sclerosis or motor neurone disease.
Some are caring for a frail, elderly (and sometimes not so elderly) loved one with dementia, with each day seemingly drawing them deeper into a mysterious and heartbreaking world of their own.
For others, a road or industrial accident, or maybe a horrific sporting injury has changed forever not only the life of the sufferers, but also the life of those who have stepped up to attend to their every need.
These carers often have to manage outbursts of anger or bitterness as the tragically disabled patient tries to come to terms with this “new” way of life — a way of life that they themselves had never foreseen and would not have wished on their worst enemy.
And for some, life takes a new, totally unexpected and permanent change when their anticipated joy of bringing a child into the world moves into an entirely new realm, demanding a lifetime of devoted, selfless care for a disabled son or daughter, who is destined to be reliant on them for as long as they live.
The fall that so dramatically changed John Kennerley’s life — and Kerri-Anne’s — occurred just a little over a year ago. Interviewed last November, he described his wife’s support in this way: “Kerri-Anne has been the strength of my whole recovery. Without her I don’t think I would have attempted it but, as I say, she was there when I woke up and she has been with me every day.”
Well done, Kerri-Anne. But well done and congratulations also to the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, who, like you, have put personal dreams aside when a loved one is struck down by health issues that require day-to-day ongoing care.
Consider yourselves as being inducted into a very special “Hall of Fame” of your own. Fr Kevin Dillon is the parish priest at St Mary’s Parish, Geelong