This picture was taken at a wedding shortly after we were married. When I look at it, I can see how obvious it is that I adored Peter. I always did; I always will.
And so, when all is said and done, what is that I want people to know about Peter?
He was a good man - perhaps the best I have ever know. He was unfailingly kind. He was just. He was compassionate. He was humble. He liked to help others. No matter how often life proved him wrong, he always believed in the best of people.
Peter is my best example of how I should treat other people.
Over the course of our life together, I have seen Peter interact with a wide range of people, from different countries and different backgrounds. He always treated them with respect. He always showed genuine interest in them.
I used to ask him, "How can you talk so easily with anyone you meet?"
He would answer, "Just ask them questions. Everyone likes to talk about themselves."
But he would do more than just ask them questions. He would listen to their answers, too.
Peter loved people. He loved getting to know them. He also accepted people. He never asked or expected people to change; he just accepted them where they were, for who they were.
Oh, sure, there were a few people he didn't like. But he'd never go out of his way to make things difficult for them. He would still treat them kindly, courteously, with respect. And if they no longer wanted to have anything to do with him, he'd accept it and figure it was their problem, and not his.
But for the most part, he liked people, and they liked him back.
This didn't just extend to people who were socially acceptable. In the late 1990s he owned and operated an internet cafe, Cyberia, across from the National Theatre. All of St Kilda was a red-light district, and on Carlisle St and Barkly St, especially, most of the prostitutes were trans women. At that time, many trans people were kicked out of their homes, and many turned to sex work because they couldn't gain acceptance anywhere else. We had neighbours who thought these women were funny, or were freaks. We had neighbours who would refuse to acknowledge them as female, and would instead misgender them. Peter just accepted them. I know that may not seem like much now, when trans people are much more understood - but back then, he was in the minority.
He would never misgender anyone. He would never try to learn their dead name. Instead he would accept them. Speak with them. Get to know their stories.
Peter had a natural curiosity about the world around him. He loved the big, grand adventures and he loved the quiet, everyday adventures. He loved traveling, but he also loved staying home. His life was in so many ways shaped by his travels. I think that's where he learned to open himself up - to listen and to learn - and I think his travels really shaped the man he became. But he also loved our home in the Australian bush. I remember in 2020, I lamented that we couldn't go anywhere. He commented that he was really enjoying not having to go anywhere. He was enjoying the break from airplanes and airports.
When we moved out here, I thought he wanted to work the land. In truth he just wanted to be in the land. To be around nature. He didn't care much for clearing trees or gardening. He just liked knowing it was there - the trees, the birds, the wildlife. He was a kind and gentle man, the kind who wouldn't kill a spider. He wouldn't even move spiders outside - he was content to live with them. (Flies, ants, and mice were fair game though.)
A few years ago he stuck his arm in the sleeve of his jacket and was bitten by a spider. He shook it free and the spider fell to the ground. He told me his hand hurt a bit where the spider bite was. But he refused to kill the spider that had hurt him. Instead we took a picture, so that if it swelled up and he needed medical care, we could show it to the doctors. The idea of killing a spider, even after it had hurt him, just would never occur to him. After all, he would've argued the spider was just defending itself. (As it turns out the pain of the bite went away within a couple of hours. I sent the photo to the Melbourne Museum for identification and was told it was a wolf spider, and that Peter's bite was actually their first documented wolf spider bite.)
For weeks after that, the spider seemed to follow him. He'd be sitting in his chair and the spider would actually change directions to come after him. One night I found it in our bedroom making its way towards the bed. Peter still would not entertain the thought of killing it. I didn't even mention it to him, because I knew he would be offended at the thought. We thought it was funny, that he had a spider stalker, but he didn't want any harm to come to it.
Peter was good and kind with people too. Especially with his family. Especially with me. Especially with his children.
Saying "I love you" didn't come natural to Peter; but he knew it was important to me, and so he learned to say it. He said it often - not a night went by when he didn't tuck the kids into bed with an, "I love you." He said it often to me too; it was the first thing he'd say when he walked through the door, the last thing he'd say before he went to sleep. He made me feel it, too.
Peter wasn't one for big romantic gestures - except when he was. Like when I told him I wanted to get married, and was frustrated because I didn't know what he wanted. "I've been thinking for a while that I might just take you away to a Pacific island somewhere and surprise you by eloping." Or when he walked in, about nine months before the 20th anniversary of us meeting, and said, "Quimby, I was thinking we should go back to Eugene for our 20th anniversary. "
But even without the big romantic gestures, I knew he loved me. I knew it because he showed it, every day. If I was doing some job around the house - hanging out the washing, or drying the dishes - he'd just come right in and help with it. We would stay up late at night, watching TV, holding hands under a blanket on the couch. It was just the little things, but cumulatively, they added up to very big things: this quiet crazy love we had for each other.
He told me frequently that the kids and I were the reason for everything he did - that nothing made sense without us. And now I'm left in a world where nothing makes sense because he's not here. The entire world is turned on its head, flipped inside out. Nothing makes sense without him.
My mother - Peter's mother in law - Lois Masters remembers Peter:
"I know he accepted everyone just as they are - whoever they are or were. He also was very perceptive about people. He understood them. He seemed to understand the better nature of people. He gave them the benefit of the doubt; but he also was confident in his instincts. He knew how to set limitations without limiting himself and without offense to others.
Of course, he is a sensitive and intelligent man. And oh my, how he loved and cherished his wife and children. It was so obvious - his gentle counseling - his respect for his children as 'people' even when each was very, very young......never negative toward them....but if they were choosing options he wasn't wanting to support, he would use questions to guide them to better choices.
He is quiet by nature.
He studies things out....ponders....figures....looks for new ways to approach a dilemma.....or a decision."
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