A passerby squatted next to Officer woman Gillian Gilbert in Dandenong’s David Street, grabbing her hand tightly as she wept on the nature strip.
It was 2013 and Gillian had just walked out of a specialist appointment at Dandenong Hospital.
The doctors had found two cancerous tumours in her breasts.
They told the then 43-year-old they would “try to get five years out of her”.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she looked the passerby, a Muslim woman, in her eyes, which peeked through a slit in her burqa.
“Sometimes bad news isn’t always bad. You just have to find the good. Something good will always come from something bad, you just have to find it,” she told Gillian.
“I remember thinking ’yeah right, you have no idea love’,” Gillian recalled.
Of course, it hasn’t been an easy journey for the mother of four.
Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and countless appointments have meant Gillian spent many years consumed by a horrific diagnosis.
In fact, she continues to undergo a 10 year hormone treatment course to keep the cancer at bay.
But Gillian, who has worked for many years as a hairdresser and teacher’s aid, believes she has found the silver lining to her difficult battle – through an unsatisfactory job interview with a wig wholesaler in metropolitan Melbourne.
“During the interview, he said ’these women are more worried about losing their hair than the cancer itself’’,“ she recalled with a scowl on her face.
“(He said) ’they’ve got no idea about wigs, how much they should be, where to get them from, a bottle of shampoo and conditioner for the wig for $132 each, they’ll buy it if you tell them to’.
“(He said) ’sell them the most expensive wig there is because they don’t know any different’.”
After the interview, Gillian decided working for “someone like that“ wasn’t for her.
“I also decided that if someone with no empathy or anything for women could run a wig shop then maybe I could too,” she said.
Five years down the track and Gillian is the proud owner of Wig Sisters in Officer, empowering women with cancer through functional, practical and affordable wigs and hair care.
“It’s really nice for me to see ladies that are newly diagnosed and to be able to talk about and empathise with what they’re going through, you know, fix them up with some great looking hair so that they feel fantastic,” she said.
Running the store with the help of her friend and co-worker Kim, Gillian says the best part of her job is seeing her customers return a few months down the track with new-found confidence.
“They bounce in looking for something a bit blingy or something a bit longer or they’ve got a party or a wedding or a birthday or something,” she said.
“Every time I see these ladies, I always try to give them that little bit of good amongst the bad.”
Thankfully, Gillian is on a happier, healthier path today.
She has a thriving business, offers her spare time to volunteer with the Cancer Council and just welcomed her first grandchild.
But she maintains she still thinks about the Muslim woman that stopped to tell her to look on the bright side on one of her darkest days.
“I try and say to people, to my ladies that come in, whatever happens, just try to look for something good. I found the good in my bad,” she said.
“Every other day I thank the Muslim woman that stopped and told me to look for it, because maybe if she didn’t I wouldn’t have .”
