Margot’s Death

My partner, lover, friend of twenty years, and fellow NLP Trainer, Margot Hamblett, died on Tuesday 6th February at our home in Christchurch, of heart failure due to chest pressure. Despite two years of living with breast cancer, her last days were very happy, and free of pain. In fact, she had reduced her pain medicine by half over the previous weeks, and had noticed that if she forgot and missed a day with it, the discomfort was minimal. She had many signs of healing, including diminishing chest tumours, gaining weight and positive feelings about the future. On Tuesday evening, she went to bed a little early, and after a short sleep, called me in to the bedroom saying she wanted to talk to me about the arrangements for tomorrow. I was puzzled. I said “You’re not arranging anything for tomorrow; I think you must have been dreaming.”

She didn’t seem to have any arrangements in mind, so I spent two hours doing a relaxation process with her, taking her in her mind through many of the places we had visited together that were favourites of hers; especially tropical beaches. Her breathing was laboured, as it had been for a couple of weeks. Usually this had calmed once she relaxed and slept, but this night it continued to be laboured. I asked her five times if she was comfortable. Each time she said she felt very happy and very comfortable. The last time, she followed this by saying “Actually though, I think.... oh, it doesn’t matter anyway.” I was a little concerned by this so I said “I love you.” And she said “I love you.” She drifted of to sleep with me stroking her forehead and repeating “Everything is fine; everything is okay. You’re doing great. You can relax now.” Because her breathing was still laboured even as she slept, I decided to stay awake with her, and continued reassuring her that things were going well and her breathing could relax and become regular. An hour and a half later, her breathing became more irregular, and so I propped her up more in bed, noticing as I did so that she did not arouse. Half an hour later, she started missing breaths. I dressed, called an ambulance, and put my arms round her sides ready to wake her up. She fell forward into my arms and died. The ambulance team arrived almost immediately but she was unable to be revived.

I will miss Margot deeply over the next fifty years, but I am very sure she will be fine. Life—even the last part—is not as scary as we sometimes think. Margot’s exit was planned well at some level, and I know that the things she did in the world will continue to change people’s lives.

Margot’s Contribution To The World

Margot was, amongst other things:

• An excellent mother and homeschool teacher
• A wonderful companion and lover
• A social worker and counsellor
• A ballet teacher
• An art teacher
• A potter and organic gardener
• An international trainer in NLP and Chinese Chi Kung
• Co-author of 4 published books and over 50 articles
• An antiracism course facilitator
• Co-developer of Transforming Communication Training
• A social activist for issues such as animal rights and feminism
  

In our personal relationship, Margot was my friend, colleague, lover and inspiration. To lose all these at once is a stunning blow, and has required rethinking my every activity. In writing articles, for example, the process usually began with my reading some book or us discussing some experience in our training. Margot would identify the issue or new insight and say “That’s an article. That’s important. We should write it now!” I would then go away and collate the research to back up our idea, and create a rough draft of the article. I would return with this to Margot who would expand it so that it made sense to normal human beings, and add pieces she thought were missing and important to the flow.

In the same way, it was almost always Margot who urged me to initiate larger projects. By myself, I would have continued running conflict resolution instructor trainings under the guidance of Effectiveness Training International, but it was Margot who urged me to realise that what we did was better than what Effectiveness Training could offer. She encouraged me to trust that our trainees would prefer to teach our own course with its NLP base (Transforming Communication) rather than the “tried and tested” model. Today, that course is offered to business managers, ministers, nurses, doctors, teachers, parents, counsellors and others, both in New Zealand and overseas.

Margot was a risk taker, whereas I was always seeking the easiest path. It took months before I agreed with her to go to Sarajevo the first year we did. “Why, when we could go to the Greek Islands, to Bali or to Thailand beaches, would we spend our own money and time going to Sarajevo?” Now, I consider those trips amongst the most important experiences I have ever had.

Margot brought into my life her love of nature, her gentleness, her creativity and tolerance of the bizarre, her absolute commitment to our relationship, her willingness to work at including everyone in each situation. So many qualities that I now want to permanently incorporate into my way of being. I also considered her breathtakingly beautiful, and her passion for lovemaking was a constant delight.

I really have no final way of explaining “why” she died, when I have met so many others who lived through similar crises. But I am grateful that she lived. Very grateful, very admiring, and still very much in love with her, as she was with me. I feel her with me constantly, and in everything I do from here on, she will have a role.

Richard Bolstad