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The Tweed River, N.S.W. |
A wise woman once said to me that one of our enduring goals ought to be to die with no regrets. I've blown it already I'm afraid and, with another Mothers day upon us, I realise that one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't ask my mum more questions about her life while I had the chance.
At 17 I went bobbing off on a bus with 18 of my just-graduated school mates from Murwillumbah High to the University of New England 400 kilometres away, all compliments of Commonwealth scholarships which few of us, including our parents, knew much about at all. The comparative luxury of Mary White College was handed to me on a plate and I've never lived at home since.
Perhaps if I had I might have developed the wisdom or the maturity to become curious about my mother before it was too late. But too late it is and I'm wracked with questions that nobody can answer, least of all her.
Left motherless 3 days after her birth in a family self-described as bog-Irish catholics she grew up with a feisty disrespect for authority if their rules didn't align with her own innate beliefs or logic. She was fearless, articulate and a bit quirky, my mum. She painted our shoes with stove black, left conditioner in her hair because 'it feels so lovely' (only until it dried) and encouraged us to rub charcoal on our teeth instead of the much more palatable toothpaste. Salt water would cure anything, as would jumping in the sea. She regularly dismissed the need for precision with a carefree 'Oh don't fuss. A man on a galloping horse won't notice!' I blame her for my own sometime cavalier attitude towards attention to detail.
At our small house opposite an arm of the Tweed River two green tree frogs lived in the tin letterbox out the front. Mum used to chat to them whenever she went out to check for mail.
When a passer-by once looked at her askance she happily explained that no, she wasn't talking to herself, she was talking to the two resident frogs - as if that made it all okay. (I was recently told by my sister-in-law that an old friend of Mum's once borrowed the two frogs to deal with a cockroach problem she was having in her garden shed. None of us knows how that turned out.)
The mystery is that this woman who left school at 13 could, and did, recite poetry at length and with great expression, was familiar with the works of Alexander Dumas, Emile Zola and Dickens - "Barkus is willin''' was a favourite expression - was a faultless speller, regularly made up games involving grammar and punctuation to entertain us in our television-free evenings and had a boundless repertoire of spine-chilling stories which left us wide-eyed and breathless.
And I never thought to find out how this could be.
At her funeral some old chums were discussing their own memories of my mum's life.
'Remember Maisie and the spelling prize? She first won the whole school medal when she was only ten.'
'That was when they were living over the fruit shop with their Aunty Bub.'
What?
I ache to know. What was it like growing up motherless? Why did she despise the church so vehemently? Why did she never value possessions and give away anything we gave her the minute our backs were turned? When did her family arrive in Australia, and how? What became of her father after her mother died? Where did she meet my dad?
Tell me the stories. If only someone could.
At 17 I wasn't the least bit curious about her. Self-focused and wanting only to get away I just never thought to ask. Of course I went back, frequently. The highways from Melbourne to the Tweed are as familiar as my own street - the monotony of the Newell, the hair-raising risks and beauty of the Pacific. But on arrival there was always the excitement of being together again, reunions, partners to introduce, old friends to catch up with. Never the right time to sit down with just my mum for heart to hearts and a sharing of her history.
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