Jennifer Granger

Dear Gav,

Well, for the record, here is one more testimony of another life that you have touched, moved and inspired. You have always had the power of creating genuinely real conversations. So I am putting the impact you had on me out there for others to read, as a tribute to how you naturally practiced "R U Ok?", well before you ever conceived of the day.

I will never forget the first time I saw you. It was 2005 and I had just started freelancing at Y and R. I stepped out of the lift into a crowded foyer to discover that you were holding a Friday morning office debrief. The first thing I noticed was the expression on other peoples' faces. They were totally engaged by you. It was very obvious that you had their total respect and admiration. As I peeped over shoulders to see who was talking with a voice that sounded so genuine and enthusiastic, I remember thinking "Bloody hell! Now there's a true leader." To this day, I've never witnessed another leader command that level of natural esteem.

During that time, as you might remember, my William, then two years old, suffered second degree burns down all of his chest. The weeks of his treatment were hellish and coupled with my husbands' depression ripping my marriage apart, I could barely think straight on the job. It was a time when I was definitely not OK. You did everything you could to step in to help on the project I was doing a bad job of. Thank you. I cannot imagine trying to organise something as huge as R U OK Day in the midst of what you and Gus have been going through.

Many people have written on this blog of how you have the ability to just focus and entirely listen to what another person is saying. Several years later, when our paths crossed again, you generously gave your time to listen to what was going on in my world and inspired me to do Landmark. Several friends had tried to get me to do that course, but they always sounded like they were selling six free steak knives with it. But I trusted your sound judgement and downright enthusiasm and enrolled in the course an hour later. Yep, by the time I got off that phone I admit that I did have a massive crush on you! You could have told me to jump off the bridge and I would have at least considered it! The reason is because you really, really listened to me. You also inspired me by being honest about your own shortcomings. It was one of the most real conversations I had ever had with another person and that conversation made a massive difference to the direction I would take my life.

You told me of the commitment you had to your lovely wife Maz and that at least now, when you did have an argument, you fought fairly thanks to the Landmark tools. You told me that through the course I would either find the way to recommit to my marriage or choose a new life but I would stop sitting on the fence. Three years on, as you know, I have managed to negotiate a peaceful separation, without lawyers or the courts being involved. An unimaginable result. More importantly, my boys are happier than I could have dared believe was possible, given a broken home. Their teachers have told me that I should just keep doing whatever it is that I am doing, because the boys are doing great.

So one more R U OK conversation that changed yet another life. I can't thank you enough. I will do everything I can to help R U OK day for as long as I am on this earth. You have inspired me to reach out and live a really big life, moment to moment.

With love and thanks,

Jenny G.