Max
Without Prejudice
Mara had not long left her husband when she heard her brother, had died. it took them a week to find the first sibling, my foster daughter, Mara.
He'd jumped in front of a freight train, one Thursday night at 8pm at night, at Caulfield.
Dressed up in a suit and carrying nothing personal on him. Flew like an angel arms outstretched and died, his body mangled and unrecognisable.
Save for his tattoos, on his arms, freshly done, and when the police took photos of the tattoos around to the real Esate Agents in the area, a young girl recognised them.
And they found on his application form, the first clue, Mara was named as a personal reference.
She had no idea how they found her, but they are the police.
Ringing one of her neighbours to take her a message and then the Police arrived at her door, and she knew, just knew, the news was not going to be good.
My daughter Alena arrived with Mara in tow after ringing me, hysterical, and Mara was beyond grief. Her baby brother, she had helped to bring up, her big eyed, brother Max. Two weeks off turning 30. It was awful, tragic.
And we had to find her five other siblings, Eddie, Zoran, George, or Dragan, Billijiana and Tanya, Alena and I looked non stop for a week and finally we found Eddie, Mara's Scizhophrenic brother. He was at Dandenong Psychiatric.
Eddie was like "Rain Man", and tried to make sense of what Mara was telling him, tears coursing down her face in agony when it seemed like he couldn't understand. He remembered me, and Alena as Yvette.
He politely thanked us all for coming and said he was tired and was going to bed.
Mara was beside herself, not sure if he understood what she had been trying to tell him. His brain locked away as it was. I didn't think so, he only retained what he wanted to and he was like a little child, innocent, sweet.
But he held all the other siblings details in his head and we wrote them down. Our own little "Rain Man, Eddie. His illness changing his looks,We went looking for Zoran first and had to go to the dregs of the earth. Alena refusing to get out of the car and Mara and I going in.
It was a flat somewhere in Noble Park, darkness all around and dim street light. I didn't want to get out of the car either, but Mara insisted and I wouldn't leave her all alone.
Strange large men outside a flat, all smackies, my stomach turned over and I stayed back in the shadows. scared half to death. but I had Mara's back if necessary.
She persuaded them she needed to speak to Zoran, who had moved out from the flat weeks earlier. Finally it got through to them Zoran, Sister, Trouble and got Zoran on the phone.
I hated seeing those big strong Italian and Greek men, stumbling around, all drug addicted, I wanted to vomit, but kept it all together until I was back on the safety of the car and shuddered for ages. God, junkies are awful people.
Zoran was shocked and gave us Tanya's number. Mara had been out of her own family since she was 13, living with us and marrying and having her own two boys.
Tanya was everything horrible you can imagine, a rough, tough, screaming, swearing, plastic fantastic "wog" girl from Adelaide. There was another sister who lived with her, Billy, but Mara said she was strange, very intoverted and had a temper.
Lots of mental illness rampant in the family and Mara was sane compared to the rest. The only one that led a normal life, with house and hubby and kids. And I wondered then if it was nature or nurture with a child.
The rellies being a shabby lot, One sick, one a heroin addict, one a "Nut Job", highly wired or something, one introverted, we never found George, he was like a man that never wanted to be found. We tried everything, the red Cross, the Internet, The Salvatian Army, nothing.
Before the funeral Mara and I had to go to Max's flat, it was agonising. Beyond awful, knowing he was dead and looking for clues.
He was so neat, everything in order, beautiful precious photos and birth certificates all neatly put in albums. So precious to Mara as she had no family photos. A beautiful Skyline photo of New York framed on one wall. A flat of any single male living close to the city.
He's been employed until about 12 months previously as a labourer, previously as a qualified Printer, his certificates in the albums. in his bedroom, suits and clothes neatly placed, it was grim, and we sat on his bed and cried.
Mara overwhelmed and I wondered if it had been a good idea after all, to come, but Mara needed answers, anything, what had made her beautiful baby brother step off the edge of the world??
So we went looking and in the mean time there was everything else to contend with. The crazed rellies for a start, Tanya arriving from Adelaide, Zoran off in his own world, visits from Eddie. Mara's House mate moved out that week,
She just rocked from one position to another, Mara, buffetted by all and still trying to hang on to her own life. Her boys very young and impressionable, she did the funeral arrangements herself, picking out a coffin and crashing into a car after.
The funeral was nice, very few of us there, which seemed a shame. Just a few friends and relatives, Yvette arriving late but with her fella and Mara's ex husband, who was fantastic, and just us.
Zoran with a very much older American woman and a male friend who knew Max when he was young, living in Keysborough with the nutty Father and no Mum.
Mara's Mother died when she was 11, from breast cancer, died within 6 weeeks of diagnosis and leaving a family of 7 in the care of her paranoid Schizpophrenic husband.
Tony, a man you saw shuffling around Parkmore, long greasy hair, sometimes he had cotton buds sticking out of his ears, Mara was ashamed and saddened by him. he would recognise me and say,
"You tell Mara come home"
"She's not coming back, Tony"
"You tell Mara, come home", and he would shuffle off, and I felt so sorry for him. He was a bit mental but he knew one of his brood was missing.
He died and Mara was not to know for 6 months, a policeman telling her and she realised not one of her siblings had let her know.
They resented her for leaving them, especially Tanya who was left with Billy, the two girls, expected to do the job the Mother had been doing.
And the father was quite violent and Mara hated the bashings and violence before her precious Mother had died.
She came to stay from the day of Lauren's funeral, classmates with Lauren but closer to Alena, friends wise.
She was bossy and arrogant and thought she could do no wrong. She had a habit of slumping at the bench, and saying,
Who cares??"
I did that's for sure, but I don't think she thought, she somehow deserved it. And she always felt like a substitute child and no doubt for a while I did that. Realising one day she was not Lauren but herself.
But I always admired her spirit .
Back To Max........
So Mara just went to hell for a while, there was so much to contend with, she was evicted and had to go back to her hubby's roof for a while, but she did it for stability for the boys and just wore her ex hubby's wrath.
Not a good situation to be in, very unhealthy, but she did it. She needed to centre her boys at least and get herself together too
To Be Continued
Love Janette
Mara had not long left her husband when she heard her brother, had died. it took them a week to find the first sibling, my foster daughter, Mara.
He'd jumped in front of a freight train, one Thursday night at 8pm at night, at Caulfield.
Dressed up in a suit and carrying nothing personal on him. Flew like an angel arms outstretched and died, his body mangled and unrecognisable.
Save for his tattoos, on his arms, freshly done, and when the police took photos of the tattoos around to the real Esate Agents in the area, a young girl recognised them.
And they found on his application form, the first clue, Mara was named as a personal reference.
She had no idea how they found her, but they are the police.
Ringing one of her neighbours to take her a message and then the Police arrived at her door, and she knew, just knew, the news was not going to be good.
My daughter Alena arrived with Mara in tow after ringing me, hysterical, and Mara was beyond grief. Her baby brother, she had helped to bring up, her big eyed, brother Max. Two weeks off turning 30. It was awful, tragic.
And we had to find her five other siblings, Eddie, Zoran, George, or Dragan, Billijiana and Tanya, Alena and I looked non stop for a week and finally we found Eddie, Mara's Scizhophrenic brother. He was at Dandenong Psychiatric.
Eddie was like "Rain Man", and tried to make sense of what Mara was telling him, tears coursing down her face in agony when it seemed like he couldn't understand. He remembered me, and Alena as Yvette.
He politely thanked us all for coming and said he was tired and was going to bed.
Mara was beside herself, not sure if he understood what she had been trying to tell him. His brain locked away as it was. I didn't think so, he only retained what he wanted to and he was like a little child, innocent, sweet.
But he held all the other siblings details in his head and we wrote them down. Our own little "Rain Man, Eddie. His illness changing his looks,We went looking for Zoran first and had to go to the dregs of the earth. Alena refusing to get out of the car and Mara and I going in.
It was a flat somewhere in Noble Park, darkness all around and dim street light. I didn't want to get out of the car either, but Mara insisted and I wouldn't leave her all alone.
Strange large men outside a flat, all smackies, my stomach turned over and I stayed back in the shadows. scared half to death. but I had Mara's back if necessary.
She persuaded them she needed to speak to Zoran, who had moved out from the flat weeks earlier. Finally it got through to them Zoran, Sister, Trouble and got Zoran on the phone.
I hated seeing those big strong Italian and Greek men, stumbling around, all drug addicted, I wanted to vomit, but kept it all together until I was back on the safety of the car and shuddered for ages. God, junkies are awful people.
Zoran was shocked and gave us Tanya's number. Mara had been out of her own family since she was 13, living with us and marrying and having her own two boys.
Tanya was everything horrible you can imagine, a rough, tough, screaming, swearing, plastic fantastic "wog" girl from Adelaide. There was another sister who lived with her, Billy, but Mara said she was strange, very intoverted and had a temper.
Lots of mental illness rampant in the family and Mara was sane compared to the rest. The only one that led a normal life, with house and hubby and kids. And I wondered then if it was nature or nurture with a child.
The rellies being a shabby lot, One sick, one a heroin addict, one a "Nut Job", highly wired or something, one introverted, we never found George, he was like a man that never wanted to be found. We tried everything, the red Cross, the Internet, The Salvatian Army, nothing.
Before the funeral Mara and I had to go to Max's flat, it was agonising. Beyond awful, knowing he was dead and looking for clues.
He was so neat, everything in order, beautiful precious photos and birth certificates all neatly put in albums. So precious to Mara as she had no family photos. A beautiful Skyline photo of New York framed on one wall. A flat of any single male living close to the city.
He's been employed until about 12 months previously as a labourer, previously as a qualified Printer, his certificates in the albums. in his bedroom, suits and clothes neatly placed, it was grim, and we sat on his bed and cried.
Mara overwhelmed and I wondered if it had been a good idea after all, to come, but Mara needed answers, anything, what had made her beautiful baby brother step off the edge of the world??
So we went looking and in the mean time there was everything else to contend with. The crazed rellies for a start, Tanya arriving from Adelaide, Zoran off in his own world, visits from Eddie. Mara's House mate moved out that week,
She just rocked from one position to another, Mara, buffetted by all and still trying to hang on to her own life. Her boys very young and impressionable, she did the funeral arrangements herself, picking out a coffin and crashing into a car after.
The funeral was nice, very few of us there, which seemed a shame. Just a few friends and relatives, Yvette arriving late but with her fella and Mara's ex husband, who was fantastic, and just us.
Zoran with a very much older American woman and a male friend who knew Max when he was young, living in Keysborough with the nutty Father and no Mum.
Mara's Mother died when she was 11, from breast cancer, died within 6 weeeks of diagnosis and leaving a family of 7 in the care of her paranoid Schizpophrenic husband.
Tony, a man you saw shuffling around Parkmore, long greasy hair, sometimes he had cotton buds sticking out of his ears, Mara was ashamed and saddened by him. he would recognise me and say,
"You tell Mara come home"
"She's not coming back, Tony"
"You tell Mara, come home", and he would shuffle off, and I felt so sorry for him. He was a bit mental but he knew one of his brood was missing.
He died and Mara was not to know for 6 months, a policeman telling her and she realised not one of her siblings had let her know.
They resented her for leaving them, especially Tanya who was left with Billy, the two girls, expected to do the job the Mother had been doing.
And the father was quite violent and Mara hated the bashings and violence before her precious Mother had died.
She came to stay from the day of Lauren's funeral, classmates with Lauren but closer to Alena, friends wise.
She was bossy and arrogant and thought she could do no wrong. She had a habit of slumping at the bench, and saying,
Who cares??"
I did that's for sure, but I don't think she thought, she somehow deserved it. And she always felt like a substitute child and no doubt for a while I did that. Realising one day she was not Lauren but herself.
But I always admired her spirit .
Back To Max........
So Mara just went to hell for a while, there was so much to contend with, she was evicted and had to go back to her hubby's roof for a while, but she did it for stability for the boys and just wore her ex hubby's wrath.
Not a good situation to be in, very unhealthy, but she did it. She needed to centre her boys at least and get herself together too
To Be Continued
Love Janette
