Family History a Stark Reminder
The content of this chapter of Love versus Goliath has been published earlier on this site in a different context. Here I have re-worked those two articles into a chapter of the book. Please let me know your thoughts. Is there sufficient detail? Does this paint a picture for you? As the reader, have I reached out to you to encourage you to want to read more?
Sadly, there is more to my story than I care to remember, then or now. I’d stored the memories away in the back of my mind somewhere, safely locked away where they stayed out of my daily life.
Melanie had commented just a few days before I should try to ensure I concentrated on the positives of progress to date, rather than the negatives. She was right, I should have been doing that. There had indeed been positives and I was most grateful for those. I continued to be haunted by the possibility a result will come too late as we juggled the waiting with the risks to my family’s safety.
Apart from the precarious situation my family was in, my own childhood made coping with the situation particularly difficult for me emotionally.
My parents courting days
September 2010, an anniversary just passed at the time of this stressful period, was the 40th anniversary of my father’s death at his own hands. He had connected the car exhaust to a hose, a suicide method of choice for men, it seems. I had moved out of home to stay with a local minister and his wife as I could not handle my parents’ constant fighting. I also had a school vacation job. One day my mother called me at work to ask if I had seen my father. I had not. I think it was the next day she called again to tell me my father was dead. He had been found in the car, in a back paddock of the farm, by the neighbouring farmer.
The night before my father’s funeral my mother attempted suicide, not for the first time, nor the last. On the day of Dad’s funeral I went from the funeral, to the wake, to the hospital. I do not remember a lot of the day as I was very distressed and the doctor had given me some medication: I have no idea what it was, but I think I was a bit like a zombie, simply going through the motions.
In about the January following, my mother was hospitalised again and then ran away from the hospital. They rang me, a 15 year-old, to ask me to look for her.
March 2011 was the 40th anniversary of my mother’s death by overdose. She was missing for a week. People kept telling us “she’s just gone away for a break, she’ll be back, don’t worry”. I knew she wouldn’t be back. Her body was only found when someone waiting at the local bus stop on a warm day smelt the decomposing body.
Two vitally important people in my life snatched from me too early. Then in April this year, 40 years later, a third vitally important person was snatched from me.
Please forgive me if I didn’t handle the whole thing with ease and a calmness others may deem more appropriate than my stress.
It was that Sunday I made the connection, for me personally, between the events of 40 years ago and the events surrounding my husband’s visa battle. I had suppressed the feelings of loss for all those years, now faced with the fear of losing yet another person the fears returned.
The fear of never seeing my husband alive again was eating me alive. Yet I had to continue to work effectively and try not to let any of this impact on my professional life. How was this possible? It wasn’t possible, but I did the best I could.
In the few days prior to the weekend when my family history came crashing back into my consciousness, a Chinese woman, an asylum seeker here with her husband and son, attempted suicide and was then in hospital in Australia. Her husband and son were ”removed” six hours later. China had the current Nobel Peace Prize winner in jail. Were the husband and son now in jail too, I wondered? I did not know the details of the case nor the grounds for removal – I did know it made my heart ache.
I realised what that time 40 years ago gave me was a very real fear bureaucracy would let me down when I needed it most.
The medical bureaucracy had refused to action my well-founded fear my mother would soon attempt suicide again. I had tried to have her committed, but at only 15 I was too young to drive the process. When she disappeared the police, despite her history, would not take any action. They followed the rule book on the number of hours a person needs to be missing before they will do anything.
Had either the medical/legal professions or the police taken action when I tried to get action, perhaps my mother would still be alive today. Well, maybe not now, 40 years later, but she may have been at my wedding, she may have seen her grandchildren born. She may have been there for me when I was learning how to be a mother myself.
I have missed my father more than my mother over the years. Perhaps had my mother received better medical treatment at the time, my siblings and I may not have lost him too. I will never know.
I do know that my experience left me with the fear that when the chips are down, don’t depend on any bureaucracy to take action. It is not as if the police couldn’t have looked at the situation, checked with the hospital, then decided perhaps there was a risk here and they should DO something.
It seemed to me that no-one cared 40 years ago. Only I cared, along with my two younger, scared, siblings that I was trying to look after. Oh, did I forget to mention that we were just left alone for the week? I was 15, my sister, 11 and my brother, 8.
Is it therefore any wonder, when faced with a similar situation where members of my family were at risk and I was again waiting on a bureaucracy, the same fear arose?
I was ignored before. No action was taken. It cost my brother, my sister and me horrifically. I was ignored again in April of 2010 when the man I love was taken from me, despite the hours and hours I had spent fighting to be heard; fighting for him to heard.
Why would I expect this time, now, to be any different? My experience was that I would be ignored again.
At the time of that watershed day, when I realised my history was impacting on my ability to handle the current situation, I did believe that this time some action had been taken – but I also knew that until I had my family in my arms I would not know if I, or the bureaucracy, had done enough or done enough fast enough.
Past experience, I realised, was casting an ever present gloom over each day that I could not escape.
Strangely, I was relieved I had this realisation, for I felt it would probably help Karen help me. I wrote an email to the Decision Maker explaining the relationship between the events 40 years apart and thanking her for the conversation we had, for it was something in that conversation that I believe had brought my history into sharp focus in the context of the current situation. That email was probably a bad decision.
I have just come to this from your Anzac post and I tell you if I was there right now I would give you the biggest hug it was possible to give you…
These terrible losses have made you strong of that I am sure…strong but with a vulnerable core..
You are probably close to the truth, Helen. Strong but with a vulnerable core sounds about right. I linked it to my ANZAC post because I thought it needed some explanation about why I remember my father at that time.
Thank you for your kind thoughts.
I’ll accept a cyber hug in lieu!
Hey Team O, wow, so clutching my Elmo and downed three straight red cordials…. I’m so happy you have a beautiful family to love you. You deserve it.
Thank you Mel.
Enjoy that red cordial, so much better than tea!
So don’t feel so bad about your Mum, Mel. You are fine and will continue to be so!
Cheers and Keep On Smiling!
The trauma you suffered as a result of your past goes a long way to explaining your strength of feeling about your current situation. I hope you gain the outcome you want and, in that way, get some closure for what happened all those years ago. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Aisha – I didn’t want to intrude on your publishing, but wanted to share with you as it seemed linked.
We have the outcome we want, finally, although still one more step to go through. We are together. This article is an extract from our memoir I am writing, you see.
Robyn I have just come across this powerful post, what a sad thing to have happened to you and your siblings.
Unfortunately the people up there that should protect and look after us, don´t always do the right thing, all the rules are followed with sometimes dire consequences…Damn bureaucracy!
Thank you Sami. It is part of the journey. That article is an extract from The Book, first draft. All the extracts need polishing, of course, because I have published them in first draft form. You can see why I was so stressed my husband would never make it home…..
Bureaucracy, indeed!
This is very powerfully shared… thnaks for the stories and hugs for the sad parts…
I like the hugs! Thank you for the positive feedback!
The parallel is effective and your emotional state is clear. You do a good job of re-creating the suspense as well.
The only thing I advise is to watch punctuation and sentence structuring. Of course, that will come later in the editing process. The story, itself, is more important at this point and you are doing a terrific job.
Thank you, Erin. I hope I find a good editor. I’ll see how I go on the second draft and will pay more attention to my punctuation from here on in. I didn’t realise it wasn’t so good! Sentence structure will, I hope, come with draft 2.
For the most part, it’s fine. I just noticed a few places that needed work. I’m a details kind of person. For example, my house may be a wreck but you can be darn sure my books on the bookshelf are arranged by size. Full on crazy…
You’re writing good stuff, my dear. Can’t wait to read more.
Erin, that is exactly what I need. YOU have always wanted to be a writer, your mother wanted to be a writer: you are streets ahead of me. I’m really just someone who has a history that I feel is worth telling, if for no other reason that to humanise the whole asylum seeker and partner visa arena. I know what I want to say – HOW to say it is a completely different and new field of endeavour for me.
I need people like you to point out where my “telling” can be improved. I appreciate every word you say! {{{hugs}}}
My heart goes out to you. I too have had a troubled and traumaitc past. Like you I was the eldest. There are many children in my family, children who were largely ignored when my parents drama unfolded, and we most needed the support of others.
Your writing is excellent. As the others have said it’s very powerful writing. However, I’m concerned that publishing parts of your future book in your blog may not be a wise thing to do, given the blog scraping that is so prevalent on the interent.
Hi TiTi,
Thank you for your feedback. Very much appreciated and I know you have the background yourself to know whether you “feel” it or not.
As for the publishing – it is the advice of several literary agents. It seems to be expected these days for a first time author. Yesm, scraping is a risk, but on the other hand it is always my history and no-one can steel that reality.
Very compelling reading. Our wounds either defeat us or drive us on to greater things. We may never feel healed ourselves but the potential for our capacity to offer healing to others expands. Maybe this is what your writing is destined to accomplish.
Thank you for your kind words. I believe you are right about our capacity and I maybe you right about my writing – I hope so!
We wish you and your family a wonderful Christmas.
Bureaucrats are not paid to care , they get paid to administer and often to interpret the law – badly ! We need to go in fighting for those we love , and never give up.
Still waiting on the MRT to list our case 25 months after applying for the review. So much for their stated aim to provide a ”quick resolution”
Mike & Heidi – I am so very, very sorry for your ongoing trauma. Have you taken any steps to have the process expedited?
Hi Robyn,
not sure what we could do in the way of application for expedition, from those I`ve seen even that can take months. We are safe and for now together in Oz. In my way of thinking the longer the delay at the MRT the deeper the hole that is being dug for the Dept. of Immigration – how can they continue to claim we are not a couple after being together now for almost 4 years ?
Sure would like to get our life back again without the threat of having to move overseas to a migrant friendly country at 28 days notice
I am not sure what you could do either, other than consult a lawyer. As I think I have mentioned before, probably you are considered not a rush case given you are in fact together.
Agree with you totally about the time together aspect – certainly makes it very hard for anyone to deny the relationship is genuine!
Keep in touch – I’d love to know when you actually are successful and the ultimate timeline!
It’s powerful… I’m right there with you..I want to read more.
If this were fiction, I would say that the parallels between the two situations are used very effectively…but….it’s not fiction and they are even more salient and powerful.
On a side note, my heart goes out to you….you’ve been through a lot… I wonder if perhaps what you went through with your parents’ suicides, the bureaucratic neglect, the lack of someone with the maturity and strategies to handle the situations…that those provided you with that extra passion to give everything you had for your husband and children to obtain those precious visas.
I’ve seen some people I love who were “discarded” by others in their lives…and the pain and fury I feel/felt about that has empowered me to put my heart and soul into intervening to help children I work with who had also been “discarded”….power can come from seeing and being affected by circumstances that shouldn’t have happened or didn’t need to have happened that way….and using that passion when one meets circumstances that are equally unforgivable and familiar.
Keep writing…it’s powerful and good….
Thank you so very much for your feedback. I will be back to edit this reply, I just wanted you to know I have read it. Christmas Day is a little hectic!
I’m back. It has been such a rush these last few days!
I think you are possibly correct – what I had been through in my early life certainly had something to do with my determination. This only became a realisation mid-battle, but once I saw it, it became clear.
I was particularly interested in your observation about the parallels – I hadn’t given thought to if this were fiction before, but now you mention it – I agree!