Song a Day November: Dumb Ways to Die

I had a bit of an emotional kick yesterday.

See, I went to see Arrival at the cinema, before I was due to catch a plane back to Melbourne. The movie is great. Really great, but there was an early scene where you see the protagonist and her daughter in a montage of her life (and I can tell you this without spoiling anything about the movie) The daughter is a baby, then a toddler, then a child, then a teenager - then a sick teenager, then a dying teenager.

And it was the sights of this that left me feeling harpooned.

The feeling passed after a while, but still, I was left to acknowledge that I miss my niece, Lolly and the circumstances of her death leave me perplexed as to why she had to go in such a way.

Arrival is a great film. I want to see it again  - and I'm ready for the emotional sucker punch now. I would like to go back and see it again - I missed the last five minutes as I was busting for a pee - serves me right for getting a medium coke zero to drink rather than the small.

Then I got on the plane. One of the films available to watch was "Me, Earl and the Dying Girl". Again, another great film - but could I watch it. No. The film's about a girl who has leukaemia and how her friendship group deal with it. Again, an excellent film - which I think I saw before Loll passed away. Regardless, couldn't watch it yesterday. All a bit sensitive.

So this leaves with today's choice of song, which comes from a strange and treasured memory. My nieces and I sang this at the dinner table a few years back. My sister was horrified that we were singing about death. My mother looked at us as if we had two heads for singing and dancing (yes, you have to do the dance with the song) at the dinner table. But I remember singing and dancing along with both my nieces to this song and having a great laugh. That it's a song about being careful around train stations and level crossings makes it even stranger.

I think about dumb ways to die - and leukaemia is a really dumb, tragic, awful, horrid and horrific way to die.

But this silly little ditty, produced on a shoestring by a government agency to tell stupid people to play it sage near train lines will always hold good memories for me.

Miss ya, Loll.