oTHeR LiTEraRy hOBby

hOmE iS wHeRe tHe HeArT iS

This is a little hobby I started some years ago. More of a personal therapy session really, but you are welcome to read it. I have nothing to hide, and everything to gain.

Miss Cherry.


hOMe iS wHeRe tHe HeArt iS - bY cHeRRy


Memoirs of a missing childhood...

by Cherry-Anne Lee (Fosberry)

Intro

For those of you who have ever had to live with a parent, relative or friend with bipolar affective disorder (or ironically abbreviated as BAD), you will probably know all too well that survival is for the fittest, the weak shall only perish and the pain will forever live on.

I have lived and coexisted for 32 years, 9 months and almost 30 days with a mother who has BAD and has no intention of admitting or believing that she even has an illness much less the desire to own her own life, take full responsibility and remain on medication and off illegal drugs and alcohol.

Like so many others in the same boat, here is my story...


Part One: Just Another Manic Monday

1: Life is like a bowl of cherries

I was naively born on the 28th of March in the year 1977. My mother was 17 years old and my father 19. I believe my mother was content to play happy families, ignoring the warning signs that my father was becoming a raging alcoholic. I am told that she was first admitted to a hospital in Sydney for unreasonable behaviour when she was 21 and by my fathers account it was to do with her own fathers death, which had happened sometime after my birth.

Many skeletons in the closet and rumours galore surfaced from that time on and sorting the truth from the lies is still an ongoing hobby for me. I think the real truth shall die within the aging generations before me before I find it, but one thing that is certain, my mother had in some way been subjected to sexual abuse and her own mother refused to accept it or help her when it was needed the most. The stories that have plagued and floated around our family tree are like black clouds that are cold,cruel and calculated, but only a select few will ever know for sure if it is true and they will no doubt take it to their graves rather than admit their faults and shed light on an ongoing unsteadiness among immediate family members, who all in some aspect now have a mental illness.

So anyway, it can be noted that for my mother the onset of her BAD was probably due to childhood abuse and definitely hereditary factors, but it was not diagnosed until after my father began to beat her.

I don't know how or when all the drinking and fighting started, but I strongly believe they both contributed in the beginning by being young and dumb, but my father had no right to hit my mother just because she was showing cracks in her stability. He did not help the fragile situation and sent it into diabolical mayhem.

I also believe that life is what you make of it, they married young, had a baby, realised life was too short, dad drank, mum argued, dad hit mum, mum breaks, children suffer a life time. Pretty common story back in those days. Eventually she did leave him but it was too late, the damage was already done. I was 6 years old by then, I had a 2 yr old brother named Daniel John and mum was diagnosed with Manic Depression.

2: Life on our own

We were always moving around after that. One moment we could be in a nice country house and the next we would be burdening our Grandmother while mum was re cooperating in the local hospital. Occasionally our moves were a bit further away, but the illness always caught up with us and sent us packing back to Nanny's.

Mum always tried so damn hard to create a good life for us, and in dribs and drabs it was perfect. Besides that, the only one we knew.

I remember being in Yamba for a while and life was good. I went to school, and mum and Dan would walk me there and be waiting at the gates when I was finished. She had and still does have the most dedicated adoration for both us kids, it breaks my heart that there had to be bad times at all.

But she hung out with one to many strange men and I remember one trying to touch me while she was fixing him a drink. I was very young but I knew what he was trying to do was wrong. When mum came in she totally freaked out when she registered what was almost about to take place. She flew into a rage, threw his coffee at his head which he only narrowly ducked and it smashed into the wall and sprayed brown liquid everywhere. Then she threw him and his gear down the stairwell outside our front door. We were on the third floor, so he was lucky to get his footing before doing some really major damage, which is a bit of a shame.

So Yamba didn't turn out and we were eventually back at nanny's for a while and then eventually taken from mum and put into foster care. We didn't understand why any of the things that happened did at this stage, but we were beginning to get the feeling that life could be cruel.

Part Two: Better The Devil You Know

3. Foster home number one

I don't remember us getting there, but I do remember that I got my very own double bed, in my own room. Daniel got the bottom bunk under their legally adopted son, who was the same age as Daniel but was uncontrollably spoilt and undisciplined.

I also remember overhearing that they dearly wanted a daughter to complete their dream of having a perfect family. From the moment I stepped foot in their house I knew for certain that there was something not altogether right about these people or there intentions. They were too nice to me for no particular reason and acted as if Daniel didn't even exist.

I have always had an uncanny intuition that has never failed me to this day yet, and I use it to my advantage all the time.

Cracks started appearing in the perfect family by day two when Daniel and I discovered that their son had an entire set of drawers with nothing but neatly folded white socks, jocks, and singlets. All white! No colour what so ever. Even at our young age we felt this was strange and unusual.

Now we were only young but we were suspicious straight away by all white under garments. Of course we had no idea what it could mean and I still can't say for sure, but we knew it had contributed to the behavioural problems of their son, who was very hard to get along with, as Daniel found out regularly when they fought.

O.K. so all white undies doesn't concern you so much...well how about this then...

One very hot Sunday we were dressed up to the nines and Daniel was forced to wear a hot woollen cardigan. He had already been growled at once for asking if he could take it off, and was now left playing in the sandpit with their son. Although neither got dirty from their romp in the sand with the Tonka trucks, Daniel was severely yelled at for attempting to get grubby.

I can still see Daniel (age 3 approx) standing in the direct sunlight requesting again to remove the coat to no avail. I'll never forget his little hot flushed and confused face as we were all bundled into their even hotter car.

They took us along to their church and we ended up in age separated Sunday schools.

Being older I was fairly assertive and resourceful so I snuck off to find Daniel who was not too far away. I took off the jacket and let him commence socializing merrily before I returned to my own bible bashing session.

Another memory I have of being in their care was even stranger. I was sitting in the lounge room when the woman jumped up and began peering out the front window snakily as she drew tight the curtains. The man joined her in this paranoid episode. They are both watching a car which is parked across the road.

Then they herd us all out the back using exaggerated whispers that frighten the two boys, out the backdoor, over the back fence and along to a neighbours house.

I learnt later that it was a very close and trusted friend of our family who had come to see us and to make sure we were alright, but for obvious reasons didn't get the chance. I'm convinced that this family were paranoid and delusional, possibly child abusers using religion as a "good, respectable people" cover.

Luckily for us we never found out what their deal was as eventually one of our uncles came to get us and we were reunited with a fresh faced mother.


Part Three: There's No Place Like Home

4. Women's Refuges

For the next little while we were in and out of women's refuges and had our fair share of trouble in each. The Lismore women's refuge was a popular choice as it was close to Lismore Base Hospital and was children friendly. Living there was like being part of one big happy family. Everyone took turns in cooking and cleaning and all us kids got to play all day long in the backyard where there was a sandpit, an art'n'craft room, toys galore, and the best tyre swing in the world. We enjoyed it at the Lismore women's refuge for the main part, although sometimes mum was too much of a space cadet to fit in normally which embarrassed us a lot.

Sometimes it didn't seem safe, as all the other women had emotional and financial issues and/or difficulties which pretty much goes without saying, because if you're in a refuge it's for a damn good reason, people don't usually choose this life over a stable one. In fact you can't, you must go through the right channels, be in just the right amount of shit, and then there has to be enough beds available.

It's a hell of a battle getting into one of these places, lucky for us mum always found a way. I guess it was easier for us because we quite obviously had it pretty bad and our story was so sad that people found it hard to turn us away. Two young kids and a mother with mental problems and a victim of child abuse and domestic violence.

Really this is a very common tale among refuge women, but mum has a way of reeling people in with every trick from morbid details to tight lipped suppressed anger to manic explosions with no rationale at all. Real or not her stories will inevitably bring even the toughest person to their knees. Personally I believe her stories to be mostly true, with some parts tainted with confusion and misunderstanding due to her illness.

Something had to make her the way she is though, so I wholeheartedly believe her childhood was very fucked up in deed. With domestic violence just throwing her over the edge.

Another thing that can be said about mum is that she is not a proud person. Basically I conclude that she has no shame at all. In fact this could quite possibly be an understatement and also my biggest hang up with her in every way, shape and form.

Which brings us back to the women's refuge in Lismore. I don't think it really ever bothered mum that we were there, wrung out and tired of having nowhere permanent to stay. But it bothered me. I knew very early on what being "underdogs" was all about and we were "it"!

I was constantly in a state of embarrassment for our situation. I hated it and there wasn't a God damn thing I could do about it. Where mum went, we went also.

One thing that really pissed me off about Lismore and has permanently scarred me for life, was an incident that happened during our first stay there. I don't know my exact age, maybe 7, and I had recently had a birthday and received a whole lot of cool Lego from my dad. I had it in a box (an empty stubby carton) and I loved that Lego. It was all I really had back then.

Someone within the refuge took it upon themselves to take my Lego down to the kiddies play area and let the children play with it. Apparently, as the story was retold later to my horrified little face, a small child tried to swallow a bit and then my Lego was deemed unsafe for children to play with, so it was thrown out, or so they say.

Now looking back, there is no way that Lego was thrown out, it was worth more than one hundred dollars and I can only presume it was hocked off for cigarettes, drugs or alcohol. Who knows, it could have been my own mother, but I'll never know the real truth. The sadness was so great for me and it still hurts to think about it. It might seem silly to some, just Lego, but for a child with nothing else but hope and faith, it was world shattering.

My world just seemed to get crueler by the minute.


Part Four: Calling Elvis...is anybody home?

5. Phone Phobias

I don't know exactly when my phone phobias started, but I do recall being uncomfortable when I was told by my Grandmother: "Cherry your Mother's on the phone, come and talk to her!", I was always saddened and scared by the thin weak voice on the other end which often spoke cruelly to me about driving her to madness and sending her to hospital because I was fighting with Daniel, or doing unthinkable acts with men she knew, or somehow trafficking drugs behind her back, which was never the case but mind warpingly powerful accusations with dire consequences none the less. I never felt I could refuse this phone call nightmare, so occasionally I would just run away and cry. I now call this "Possuming" and until very recently I still had Possum attacks when I felt I could not cope with certain situations - fortunately I have a loving partner who has nurtured and counselled this nocturnal instinct and with time we saw it eventually retire into the dark woods whence it came. I also became increasingly phone resistant and still am to this day when my mother decides she will ring someone and then just expect you to then get on the phone and speak to them. This happened early on as a child and I believe it to be a significant factor in this bizarre hatred towards phones and speaking though them. I should also mention at this stage that mum has an obvious obsession with phones, and she is literally a walking white pages of random peoples phone numbers both past, present and possibly future numbers to come. It's so uncanny how she can remember numbers and seemingly track people down no matter where, when or why.


6. Tough Love.

Getting back to my phobia however, it was my dad that I was most afraid to speak to as a child, and mum always did her best to make sure these conversations were the most regular. I would be sitting, playing with Dan or watching t.v. when mum would ring dad and I would feel my stomach churn over. I knew he would be drunk, especially if he had rung us. I would wait for the inevitable summons and then my 'flight or fight' instinct would kick in. I had two choices the way I saw it; take a deep breath, ignore the heart palpitations and just get it over and done with; or, refuse to talk to him which would mean that the next time I was made talk to him it would be brought up and I would be scrutinized about why I hadn't spoken to him the last time. And of course mum would always react to this refusal as a personal insult and start planning for the next phone attack, which might be the very next day. The sicker mum was the more chances of phone contact with just about every person she knew, and the sicker mum was the more likely I was to be questioned by every single person as to how mum's health really was. At first I might have been honest and even desperate to tell certain people that mum was really not well, but eventually I learnt it didn't always mean that someone was going to come and rescue us, and often it just meant that mum who would be pacing back and worth skittishly to close for comfort, eaves dropping, might fly into a fit of manic rage, cursing and threatening to slap or hit you in the face for conspiring with the whole god damn world in trying to send her back to that fucking hospital. Even at age 7, I began to become wise to the cycle of events that had to happen in order for the suffering to cease and even then it was always bitter sweet. Daniel and I both suffer phone phobia, even perhaps when speaking to each other, but we just make light of the craziness of it all and try to adapt to adult life where speaking on the phone must be accepted and endured in order to be part of life.


Part Five: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

7. Nanny on the train.

Mum's Mum, nicknamed 'Nanny on the train' because she always came to visit us via a train was not a woman to be reckoned with. Dad's Mum alternatively was named 'Nanny on the beach' because she lived near the beach and she always greeted us with chocolates and presents. These two ladies bore my very existence in to this world by birthing and raising the two people who later came to conceive my flesh and blood.

Nanny on the train was a hard women of Catholic background, who married young, had many menial jobs throughout her life and gave birth to nine children. My Mother was her eighth.

On November the 6th, 1959 at about 6pm my Grandmother asked a friend to phone for an ambulance.

Extract from the 'Daily Telegraph' dated Nov 7, 1959:

The accident occurred a mile from her home at the intersection of Chriswick and Cumberland Roads, Auburn.

"I was sitting in the front seat with the driver", she said.

"I saw a car coming towards us". "Next thing I heard a screech of breaks". "Then everything went black". "Next thing I remember was someone pulling me out of the crashed ambulance". "The ambulance had fallen on its side". "I didn't even get a minor scratch". "I'm glad it's all over though".

A second ambulance took Mrs Matthews to hospital.

Two hours later she sat up in bed at Strathfield private hospital and smiled.

Beside her, her new daughter cried lustily with all the might of her 9lb. 2oz.

Right from the very moment my Mother, Donna Lea Matthews, made her grand entrance into this world, her strength and determination to survive the odds was written on the wind. Nothing would be simple, nothing would come without a cost, and life would be one big roller coaster ride.


8. Nanny on the beach.

Well other than the chocolates that we received on a few visited occasions (due to the fact that we only ever seemed to see Nanny on the Beach around Easter time), I can not say that I knew her. Jean had crooked teeth and a smallish mouth that seemed to twist around the crooked teeth when ever she spoke or smiled. She was soft spoken and had a dainty cackle that was nervous at times. Our father would randomly pick us up every 2-3 years and make his way to her retirement village somewhere south of the Sunshine Coast. Jean lived with her second husband, not my fathers father. This man disliked my father a great deal, and pretty much disliked us as well. I can't even remember his name as he kept to the shadows when we visited.

My Grandmother disliked our father too I gathered, and why shouldn't she have, he was ringing her drunk and abusing her down the phone and I have reason to believe he also visited and threatened her and probably assaulted her at times in her life as well. He was an arsehole when he was drunk which was continual from a young age and has only recently slowed due to Hep C and serosis of the liver (another chapter).

I remember Nanny on the Beach crocheting coloured squares when I was very young, and we must have lived close by in Sydney, and she would tell me they were going to be my very own bedspread. She would crochet a couple of squares and place them into a box that sat near her sitting chair. The next time I would go around there would be squares joined together, and the next time a small blanket had been generated, and the next time a pattern in the squares was evident. My excitement and impatience grew with every visit. The finished result was grand and I felt like the luckiest kid in the world when I slept under it for the first time. I still have that handmade gift, it has a cigarette hole in it from when one of Mum's drug fucked friends slept on it and fell asleep with a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and the tassels around the edge are a bit worn and tatty - but all I see is the perfect nights sleep I'm going to get from sleeping underneath it's warmth. Nanny on the Beach also made me my very first feather doona, with the feathers from her own old goose down doona. Also slightly ruined from cigarette burns, parental neglect and age, but still to be found in the cupboard of my mum's place today.

I am told repeatedly that I am a lot like my Grandmother Jean, apparently I have the same cynical, sharp-negative attitude with an unforgiving eye for perfection and detail. Jean always sounded like my kind of woman, so I aspired to live up to the challenge, seeing as I was already walking in her footsteps, I could see no reason not to. In my harsh existence I figured you needed guts and determination to stand up to people like my father, and if I got to live in a posh retirement village at the end of it all, with a huge pool and rec room and very own bowling green then so be it. I was mini-Jean.

Jean was dying of cancer for 4 years before we got the call from her husband to say that she had passed away in hospital 2 weeks before. Jeans funeral was taken care of by Karen, my cousin from my Dad's side (her and her 3 other siblings were orphaned after their Mother was killed by an overturned tractor - yet another chapter). Due to the late notice we did not get to go to Jean's funeral. I have visited her rose bed memorial plaque where her ashes have been laid to rest in Lismore. Karen and I reunited briefly some years back while I was attending Southern Cross University in Lismore and was where Karen was living at the time with her family. Karen filled me in on the last 4 years of Nanny's dying life and gave me the coordinates to her grave. I felt sad and disconnected from a woman I should have known better, a mother who could not raise a better son, and a wife who would have been better off single.

Part Six: Am I ever gonna see your face again.

9. Hippie, Trippe pot smokers

I grew up surrounded by a diverse assortment of miscellaneous beings that I could best describe as bottom dwellers. My mother has an amazing magnetism that seems to have a lifetime warranty on the radar sensor that is still going strong today. When I am feeling utterly hopeless in life I try to stifle my darkness within by saying that it is this 'colourful' lifestyle that has provided me with maturity and character building qualities, but I know the deep truth of it is that I feel resentment and hatred towards not having a choice who we hung around. They were indeed colourful, that's for sure, in a technicolour kind of way that leaves you feeling high and nauseated at the same time. Pot smoking was the norm, being consumed on a daily basis, and tarot reading was a pass time. There was also regular seances conducted with the good old Ouija board (good wholesome fun for the whole family), and extremely graphic porn videos which were playing in the background for the humour.

Disturbing does not even begin to describe what I remember of my childhood. I just knew it wasn't the way it should be and I vowed that I would change things when I was old enough to get away.

Two such characters in our life that did make a big impression, and changed the course of existence entirely were Pat and Buzz. I remember going out to visit mum's new found friends and I was a little frightened of their boldness and loud lifestyle. Pat with her thick English accent and long lost grandma persona, and Buzz's quiet, stoned and skinny body just a presence in the room. They both soon won me over however as not the worst people mum had even dragged us off to go hang out with, and so the relationship begun.

Mum was dating a green beret wearing, motorbike riding man named Paul Coulsin, who I believe is how she met Pat and Buzz. Paul had been living with us at Wiangarie for a little while and was disciplined and well mannered, and filled the role of expectant and dutiful father for a few years.

The first I remember of Pat and Buzz planning to move to South Australia was when I was told we were also moving to a place called Murray Bridge. We packed up the car and off we went. Daniel and I suffered terribly with car sickness as kids and this trip was the longest to date. The golden rule was to lay down on the back seat, cover your face with something, go to sleep and hope the trip was over when you woke up. The cigarette smoking in the car with the windows up was always the ticket for having to murmur a cry to pull over to vomit which was always met with annoyance.

In true Donna style, without warning or reason, in the still of the night, at what I can only descibe as a border check point due to lights and cement barriers (although could have just as likely been a 24hr service station/truck stop), Mum bundled Daniel (aged 4) still asleep, into her arms, gave him a kiss on his forehead and handed him to Pat in the passenger seat of their touring vehicle. I was semi-awake and remember mum kissing me as I was led to the back seat of the other car. She told me to be good and look after Daniel. I didn't think much of it because Mum was always palming us off to people so she could spend some "quality" time with boyfriends and other strange men. Besides I liked Pat a lot and thought I would prefer to ride with them anyway, and I was with Daniel so it really didn't matter at the time. Mum had been a bit edgy lately too and I sensed she was getting a bit sick, so the departure was somewhat of a relief for me, thinking it to be temporary, but I was to find out it wasn't.

In the morning the apparent separation became much more obvious and the story was that Mum had decided to go fruit picking with Paul for an undisclosed amount of time. It turned out to be almost a year. I was hurt that she could just leave us with other people, even if Pat did love us and especially me (like the daughter she never had), but it still hurt to think about the lack of responsibility that my Mother possessed.

10. Murray Bridge.

A lot can happen in a year and we saw mum only a couple of times, when she and Paul would stop in to say hi before proceeding to the next fruit-picking destination. I started 3rd grade at a new school and fitted right in. I made friends with a dark haired girl my own age who lived at the outskirts of town. I learned to roller skate at the local rink and loved my time there because there was always loud new music playing - like "the final countdown" and there was two super large trampolines in the centre and a giant disco ball hanging from the roof. Anyone and everyone who was anybody hung out there. I felt good when I got to hang out there. Normal even.

Pat was kind to us and looked after us well. She would put food colouring into the mash potato to make it more fun and also into our baths for the same effect, meals had faces, or funny names like 'frog in a hole' and we were happy but occasionally missed mum. We were clothed, fed and loved. She used to sometimes read a bed time story to us or make one up, then sit on the edge of the bed and gently stroke your face until you could no longer keep your eyes open. She had the most wonderful dollhouse in the world and porcelain dolls with tiny china tea sets and miniature furniture. I loved playing with the dolls and dollhouse so much that she would tell me that she would leave it all in her will for me. I was enchanted by her English heritage and stories about her childhood. I imagined it must have been a magical place that snowed at Christmas time and there was fireplaces to keep you warm and every little girl was given a fabulously detailed dollhouse complete with working lights and exquisite furnishings, which were just some of the stories I devoured from her. England sounded Grand.

There were some bad parts to our new life, but they all mostly involved my new found friend Sharon. Sharon was skinny, shy around adults and had a younger brother who was a few years older than Daniel but acted younger, his name was David. We all hung out together and made mischief on the streets with a few of the neighbouring children. I learnt to ride a bike, so did Daniel. We would scour the dry sandy land for trap-door spiders to harass with sticks. We would go down to the school out of school hours and play on the over-sized tyre swing for hours unless the local bullies were there or turned up unexpectedly. One time the bullies started throwing large wood chips the size of books at us. Inevitable Daniel got hit and he begun to cry. I stood up from my hiding spot and marched over and punched the bully in the stomach which was the highest point at which I could reach to hit him. He looked at his friend and laughed, turned back to me and punched me fair in the face. Needless to say I was nurturing a black eye when I got home after picking myself up off the ground, and as it was one of the few times that Paul and Mum had shown back up on the scene during their fruit picking days, Paul marched us all back down there and grabbed the bully by the scruff of the neck and made him apologize to me. I must admit Paul was not someone you wanted to mess around with and that bully never looked sideways at us again.

But back to Sharon. She and David lived in a small, run down house with her uncle and perhaps other family members, but we went there very seldom so I can't really recall. Her uncle routinely sexually abused her and physically abused her brother who was intellectually impaired from either birth or as a result of trauma, and I remember her uncle being a terribly scary person who was tall and stocky and creepy looking. Sharon and David always stayed over at our place when ever they could, and eventually Pat would take both Sharon and David in, and began fostering them officially shortly afterwards. We moved house and Sharon and David came with us. We all started a new school together.

In a heart beat cyclone "Donna" was back on the scene and making up lost time. While living with Pat and Buzz, and (as not previously mentioned) Pat's youngest son Matthew who looked like a grown man to me at age 17, and who I had the mildest of crushes on but was too young to know what I was feeling, the most bizarre thing happened the night mum was back on the scene. Space cadet mum (back from outer space) decided she would opportunistically hop into bed with Matthew and there was an almighty uprising that ensued. Some confusion to begin with, then some angry heated words followed by despair and disgust. I was really embarrassed that mum had caused such disarray in an otherwise previously harmonious Eco-system days earlier without her presence. I always felt like her actions were worn by myself and Daniel. We were all tainted by her foolish unexplainable actions.

Pat and Buzz were considering going back to England to live and I was offered a one way ticket with them. I have to admit it was very tempting, but it didn't have one thing...and that was Daniel. And I felt sorry for mum. She looked worn out, disheveled and lonely. We all made our way back to Northern NSW. I don't know what ever became of Sharon and David. I never saw Pat again and heard that she died a few years ago and was living in Australia somewhere at the time. I still have a lovely porcelain doll that still has the original hand made clothes that Pat made her many, many years ago. And I have the memories of a past unique life where she was our mother for a short period of time.

Part Seven: Trains, planes and automobiles.

11. Trains...Never trust Australian Rail Post?

While in Murray Bridge, Paul and Mum brought back brand new shiny bikes - our very first bikes - during their first brief visit. My bike was a classic girls style in white with a basket and Daniel got a BMX. We loved our new bikes and we got good at riding them. It was like being handed the keys to heaven and it meant we were always out and about. When it came time to move to our new destination with Pat and Buzz with our new family members Sharon and David the rescued children, our bikes were supposed to be getting sent by rail according to Mum and Paul. The bikes never arrived. Gone just like that. We both cried for the loss of our bikes.

12. Planes...lone rider.

The first plane I ever flew on was when I was just a baby with mum but I can't remember that - Nanny on the train was with us and says that I was a good girl for the trip. The first plane ride I remember was when I was nine, travelling alone via a bus to a small rural airport to Sydney. I was terrified. Lyn who had kept in close contact with Mum over the years had taken a liking to me and was interested in my well-being and education, she decided to pay for me to come and stay with her and her husband at the time so I could have a holiday and do some fun things. I would hang out with a boy named Jade who was younger than me by 8 months and was a good friend of Lyn's and who also knew my mother from the early school days. Time with Lyn was always a welcomed change and like a sponge I soaked in all I could to understand why their lives were so much better.

I accompanied Lyn one time to a class of students she was lecturing to about safe sex and other such health matters. I sat in a corner blushing and quietly colouring in the activity book that Lyn had bought for my amusement until I fell sound asleep with my head on the open pages. I was in complete awe at Lyn and her professional status and unequivocal intelligence. I remember reading "the Twits" by Ronald Dahl that Lyn had bought me and dreaming sweet dreams of following in her beloved footsteps one day.

Lyn never missed a birthday or Christmas. And both Daniel and I would receive books and artistic activities that would indulge our creative minds. All my favourite childhood books came from Lyn. My most favourite being "The wild Washer Women" and "My little red tool box". I made each book a bible to live by and uncannily they have all in some way contributed to my life thus far.

13. And Automobiles...and drive-in theatres.

Mum was 23 when she finally got her license and her first car. As a family, and as excited as kookaburras on a hot tin roof, Mum decided to take us to a drive-in theatre for the first time. E.T. was playing, and I can remember that I was a bit scared when the house gets quarantined and men in suits walk around like aliens and find ET who is looking really sick. I'm not sure if we stayed for the whole thing, mum does not have a good track record with watching a movie all the way through, so I'm inclined to think we probably left half way through. Mum had managed to get a $3000 dollar loan from somewhere to pay for the car. Through working and saving she eventually had the money to be re payed in full in the glove box one day and her Greek boyfriend at the time, Demetrius, decided it was time he moved on, taking the car and the cash with him, and leaving mum stranded with a $3000 debt and a baby on the way.

Part Eight: Monopoly Brother

14. Milton Bradley

Daniel had decided to delegate the responsibility of naming our new brother, and proudly announced he would be named Milton Bradley! Mum and I were laughing so hard that Daniel eventually turned his disappointed pout into a smile and laughed too as if to accept the reality that if you can't beat them join them motto. Eventually Daniel came up with a more user friendly name and Matthew it was.

15. Never trust a Greek man addicted to heroin.

Backtracking nine months earlier, we had all fallen from the devastation that Demetrius had bestowed upon our already miserable lives. I can still hear him whispering in mums ear while she sits on his lap like a school girl while saying in a think rounded Greek accent "DDonnar...letz'ar get'ar maarried and have'ar ten'ar more children". He really didn't like Daniel or I for some reason, and I always felt like we didn't really exist to him. When he ran away, back to Greece from whence he crawled out from, I wasn't unhappy. The prospect of another mouth for Mum to feed however scared the shit out of me. I knew we wouldn't be able to cope. We were barely eating properly now, and only when other people took pity on us and let us dine with them or gave us charitable hand-outs.

We lived at Wiangarie for most of Mum's (estimated) ninth and last pregnancy that would go to full term and produce her third offspring. There were some great times and some really sad and hard ones too. Mum was getting over a nasty manic episode triggered by Demetrius's sudden departure and was heavily doped on largactil throughout many of her pregnant months and right up until Matthew's birth. As her belly grew so did the tensions surrounding what was best for Mum and us kids - dictated by Nanny of the Train who lived half an hour away in Kyogle. Adoption was the word on the street.

16. The adventures of Scrubbing brush dog.

We would boil the old bronze copper for our hot water and fill the enormous tub and all get in together. Mum's belly grew and grew. She would make our sides hurt from laughter when she would narrate the wonderful adventures of 'scrubbing brush dog' who would daringly try to conquer the treacherously dangerous and mountainous slopes of her swelling pregnant abdomen, only to repeatedly come to the same misfortune of falling in the drink and flail before surrendering to the currents, gurgling and sputtering as he sunk. We never tired of the storyline.

17. Promises stamped out

Mum had decided early on in her pregnancy that she would like Daniel and I to witness Matthews birth, which was welcomed by us both. Adoption had become a topic we talked about often and Mum hadn't fully made up her mind, but the Catholic adoption agency was well prepared for Matthews arrival and the forces that would be were just waiting on the sidelines.
When Mum went into labour Nanny and Poppy came and got us and drove us to Kyogle Memorial Hospital. When we got to the hospital Mum got out and then motioned for us to get out too. As we slid across the seats towards her Nanny intervened and said sharply "No! You are not going with your Mother. Now stay in that car". And that was that. Mum weakly protested for about 2 seconds before giving up and encouragingly but disappointingly smiling at our grim sad faces from the back seat of the red corolla that smelt like pig shit (because that's what my Grandfather did - worked at a Pig farm - and you never get that smell out of your head). We were devastated, but not as much as Mum was. She speaks now of how lovely her birth to Matthew was, that she was singing as he was born and that all she wanted was for us be there.

18. Tea for One and Tea for Two - but not for Three.

The hospital arranged for us all to stay in a fully furnished unit at the back of the hospital grounds while the adoption process was finalised. Matthew was allowed to stay with us but Mum was not allowed to breastfeed him. He was an unsettled baby due to the effects of the strong drugs Mum was on for her bipolar disorder. He constantly had to have mitts on otherwise he scratched at his cheeks and eyes constantly, and he cried seemingly non-stop. Daniel and I played endlessly feeling like we were staying at a 5 star hotel, getting a comfy bed to sleep in and meals all cooked and prepared. We watched telly as a happy family and parroted the 'Lanchoo Tea' add over and over because it had a funny, catchy tune..."Tea for one and tea for two, wouldn't you... like Lanchoo!", and for a while we had no cares in the world.

We stayed together like this for 4 days before the adoptive family arrived to take Matthew away. We did not meet them, we just kissed Matthew goodbye and were told that he would keep the name that Daniel had chosen as the family had agreed it was a good name. Mum was upset, we were a little relieved because he cried too much and mum would get stressed and besides we knew that he was going to get a better life than we would ever know.

19. Dragons begin to stir.

We left the hospital straight afterwards and went back to our country life in anticlimax mode, dumped back home by the same people who had picked us up 5 days earlier. Blanketed by a thick shroud of guilt and loneliness we were three again. There was plenty of mourning for our loss pumping through our veins for the brother and son that was there and then gone, but we were never allowed to express it for fear of being judged and reprimanded by the evil Dragon lady that had now become our means of survival both financially and institutionally. If we thought our lives were bad before, we were in for a real surprise.

....to be cont... (when I get the time to sit and write).


All spelling mistakes are subliminal and probably should be ignored.


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