The only way to make it better is to write about her, so that's what I'll do.
On Wednesday afternoon, I sat at the bedside of my beautiful friend and colleague Rebecca Wilson. For once, I was doing all the talking. For once, we weren't arguing about something to do with sport.
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Journalist Rebecca Wilson dies from breast cancer
Award-winning sports reporter Rebecca Wilson has lost her battle with breast cancer at 54.
There were glimmers here and there of the Bec I knew and loved. The nurse said she could hear me, so I just kept talking. About the grand finals. About Harto and her boys, Tom and Will. About all the things she has taught me. About how bloody brave she was.
"Bec," I whispered in her ear. "You have to keep going, darl. I'm on Sky News tonight and I want you to be watching."
Then she did it. I'd seen it so many times before and now she was giving it to me one last time ... The Bec eye roll.
I knew exactly what that eye roll meant. That eye roll came with words. I can hear her saying them right now ...
What a f---ing gibberer.
That's what I will miss the most about Bec. She was hilarious. We made each other laugh, even when we were arguing. One comment, one look, one eye roll and we would cry with laughter. The ferociousness of her reporting often betrayed the fact that she was quite mad.
![Andrew Webster, James Bracey and Rebecca Wilson on the set of the Sky News Sportsnight show.](/web/20161007103526im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/x/4/p/7/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grx3dw.png/1475805526124.jpg)
Bec passed away in the early hours of Friday morning, her body ravaged by cancer.
She'd beaten breast cancer a few years ago, not that many people really knew. She never missed a beat and she approached life like she wrote her columns: to the point, devoid of bullshit, just getting on with it.
![Andrew Webster and Rebecca Wilson.](/web/20161007103526im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/x/7/8/6/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.grx3dw.png/1475822723329.jpg)
When the cancer aggressively returned about five weeks ago, she was adamant she would beat it and she was adamant she did not want anyone to know.
"It's a shit sandwich," she said. "But now I'm in fight mode. I'll beat it. Keep checking in on me -Â and don't tell anyone!"
Only a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in her loungeroom with her and her husband, the former News Corp chief executive John Hartigan. In between losing money on slow racehorses, she kept telling me how she was going to overcome her illness.
How could you dispute her?
I mean, this was Bec. Rebecca Wilson, she of the sledgehammer newspaper column who would thunder away on the Sportsnight panel on Sky News, looking down the barrel of the camera and shouting, "I defy you, Stephen Dank, with your $100-an-hour solicitor from Fairfield, to sue me! Sue me!"
All host James Bracey and I could do was laugh. Dank did try to sue Rebecca. He lost in the Supreme Court earlier this year.
Her death has come so quickly. Its abruptness makes it harder to believe that it's actually happened.
She is being lauded as a giant of sports media and rightfully so. Fearless is the word being used the most and I can't really think of another one that best describes her.
When she was receiving death threats from angry Western Sydney Wanderers fans a year or so ago, she never flinched. She went after Cronulla and Dank and others for their role in the doping scandal and never relented.
She was the most well connected reporter I've ever known. She told you about the news almost before it happened.
Bec often reminded me of the slogan for Media Watch on the ABC: "Everyone loves it until they are on it."
Everyone loved Bec until she wrote about them.
She was often accused of having an agenda but in reality she had none at all. Her only agenda was the truth, and she wasn't afraid to jeopardise lifelong friendships in the pursuit of it. In the end, the bridge was usually mended.
She divided opinion in rugby league, but some of the old hard heads respected her immensely. They appreciated that they knew where they stood with her.
This was Rebecca Wilson, the columnist and panelist.
I saw a different side of her. I saw Bec, the woman who was immensely proud of her two boys, hopelessly in love with Harto and would do anything for you if you were lucky enough to be considered her mate, even a gibbering one.
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