Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
Oh my goodness, what have I done to be here today? Well, let’s just say everything I wanted to do! I’m not going to feel guilty about prioritising this day over all the crappy jobs that need to be done at home; negative me on my right shoulder be gone! Sheesh, the bloody washing never stops as does the continuum of the cycle of work – weekend repeat. Today is part of my efforts to not waste any of the time that remains of my life. Why? For the reason that many of us are compelled to act; I’ve watched others leave with regrets, of opportunities missed either spoken or unspoken. There is a good chance that this is now my half way point and there is a big flashing sign in my head that says – get a move on and make the most of it!
I haven’t always been like this, but if this is half way, then one explanation is that I am possibly going through a midlife crisis. Gosh, I’m really hoping it is midlife at the very least. One of my life heroes isn’t someone famous, it is my Great Aunt, a proudly second generation Irish Australian who was strong and fearless and at 103 years had a brain sharper than all the pencils in my house.
This Grand dame spoke sense, the type of straight talking no bullshit words that I soaked up. Her life as a young girl was horrendous, along with her 6 siblings she faced more adversity than any child should. Her fondest memories were of drinking warm lemonade upstairs in the General Havelock hotel with her extended family. This little girl lived upstairs in the pub with her youngest sister whilst her mother and father languished in gaol and her brothers and sister were scattered to work on farms across Adelaide and the plains.
The boys were less fortunate than their sisters, one can only imagine how the eldest child, with too much responsibility on his shoulders, coped at the age of 6 being doused with freezing cold water in the middle of the night for wetting his bed. It was a state care system that saw the child as a resource, child labour when old enough and this child was an inconvenience. A child, who eventually went to war as a proud young man with his gentle ginger haired brother only to experience even more horror. They survived physically.
The baby, months of age, her youngest sibling was sent to an Orphanage. He was fostered eventually, living with a new family and a new name. He also went to war, the Second World War and came back with malaria and few years to live. But these siblings were extraordinary, they lived life large and strong strings of emotion tied them together. To be sure there was never any visible example of what it meant to be a family and yet they managed to bring together something that made sense to them. They made their own version of family, without parents just them against the world, young adults forging a new path. They shared the parenting of each other amongst each other, parents before they were adults.
So seriously, what the hell am I complaining about. The world I inhabit today is thanks to the foundations they laid. I’m grateful for the turntable of life that sustains me and allows me the freedom to explore. At half way, I am chasing my dreams with my ancestors riding along with me in spirit.