Melbourne Cup Day 1976
Without Prejudice
My Mother stepped off the edge of the world on Melbourne Cup Day 1976, never to return.
She had said to Winn, my lovely Brother In Law, my older sister, Jackie's hubby, that she was going off to place a bet for the Cup, she loved a flutter, Mum.
And she had asked Winn what he fancied and he told her and she was gone, from the phone in a hurry. Supposedly off to the TAB, Kaftan billowing, sandals on her bare feet oerhaps a hat or fascinator.
Helen 10, my youngest sister at School. Dave 19. living in Redcliffe, me pregnant with my 4th child living in Melbourne with my hubby and 3 girls under 6.
Dad was at work at his panel beating business, leaving Mum home alone. He was careful with her as she was "acting funny, sometimes", she had not long been out of a psychiatric Hospital. But she seemed stable and OK.
She was on a heap of medication that had bloated her body and she didn't like it. She pretended she didn't care, but she did, she was a proud woman. She slept a lot, Jackie calling around, house a mess and Mum asleep. Her one eyed sleep, that made her look like she was looking at you, but she was asleep.
Our lovely brainy, classy Mother, so sick and so determined not to show it. She was funny and intelligent and warm and understanding and then she was a screaming monster, we were scared of. Violent, maddened, red eyed and trembling.
And we loved her and pitied her and somehow we all thought Mum was still in there. She had an overactive Thyroid, a latent war shock, seeing her Fiance killed and being strafed by Machine gun fire, and she "saw: things that made her scream in terror.
But then she could be normal, and wrote letters to the Prime Minister about her latest haircut, that she said in her letter,
"Looked like it had been cut with a knife and fork', Classic Mum .
So Nat, disappeared into the ether of her mind, Melbourne Cup Day 1976, and we found out the next day she had been found dead, taking an overdose of sleeping pills and lying down with her head on her handbag, in a park in Redcliffe.
She'd gone out with determination, not in a hospital, we found out later she had made an attempt to suicide in there, but in a park, open to the air and sky and taken her final sleep.
A man walking his dog early in the morning finding her.
I think she knew what she was doing, planning the secreting of the sleeping pills and crossing the city from one side to the other and she didn't drive. I wonder what her thoughts were that day???
Maybe she was in unimaginable pain that she didn't relay to us. She never mentioned Jamie, our dead brother except in bad dreams where she said was going to "Woolies" to find him, he was lost and she had to go there and find him.
And if Helen at 10 was not her first thought then what was ???
And Dad, who had stayed with her while she disintegrated into madness. None of us understood mental illness and we couldn't tell anyone, except each other, of our concerns and deep down I think we all knew it was inevitable.
We all try and make Melbourne Cup Day for her. Winn always buys Jackie flowers on that day and she loves them. Remembering Mum after 34 years, and we dress up and look pretty for the day.
As Mum when she wasn't ill was elegance personified. And we ring each other and ask,
"What are you putting on the Cup??"
One day we are going to go, me and my two sisters, and get our heels wet and wear stunning fashion and sip champagne as we can and she never could.And a song Dad requested to be played at his Funeral.Inspired by his "Nat"
Love to My Mother on This Melbourne Cup Day, best goddamn Mother in the world because she was "ours"
My Mother stepped off the edge of the world on Melbourne Cup Day 1976, never to return.
She had said to Winn, my lovely Brother In Law, my older sister, Jackie's hubby, that she was going off to place a bet for the Cup, she loved a flutter, Mum.
And she had asked Winn what he fancied and he told her and she was gone, from the phone in a hurry. Supposedly off to the TAB, Kaftan billowing, sandals on her bare feet oerhaps a hat or fascinator.
Helen 10, my youngest sister at School. Dave 19. living in Redcliffe, me pregnant with my 4th child living in Melbourne with my hubby and 3 girls under 6.
Dad was at work at his panel beating business, leaving Mum home alone. He was careful with her as she was "acting funny, sometimes", she had not long been out of a psychiatric Hospital. But she seemed stable and OK.
She was on a heap of medication that had bloated her body and she didn't like it. She pretended she didn't care, but she did, she was a proud woman. She slept a lot, Jackie calling around, house a mess and Mum asleep. Her one eyed sleep, that made her look like she was looking at you, but she was asleep.
Our lovely brainy, classy Mother, so sick and so determined not to show it. She was funny and intelligent and warm and understanding and then she was a screaming monster, we were scared of. Violent, maddened, red eyed and trembling.
And we loved her and pitied her and somehow we all thought Mum was still in there. She had an overactive Thyroid, a latent war shock, seeing her Fiance killed and being strafed by Machine gun fire, and she "saw: things that made her scream in terror.
But then she could be normal, and wrote letters to the Prime Minister about her latest haircut, that she said in her letter,
"Looked like it had been cut with a knife and fork', Classic Mum .
So Nat, disappeared into the ether of her mind, Melbourne Cup Day 1976, and we found out the next day she had been found dead, taking an overdose of sleeping pills and lying down with her head on her handbag, in a park in Redcliffe.
She'd gone out with determination, not in a hospital, we found out later she had made an attempt to suicide in there, but in a park, open to the air and sky and taken her final sleep.
A man walking his dog early in the morning finding her.
I think she knew what she was doing, planning the secreting of the sleeping pills and crossing the city from one side to the other and she didn't drive. I wonder what her thoughts were that day???
Maybe she was in unimaginable pain that she didn't relay to us. She never mentioned Jamie, our dead brother except in bad dreams where she said was going to "Woolies" to find him, he was lost and she had to go there and find him.
And if Helen at 10 was not her first thought then what was ???
And Dad, who had stayed with her while she disintegrated into madness. None of us understood mental illness and we couldn't tell anyone, except each other, of our concerns and deep down I think we all knew it was inevitable.
We all try and make Melbourne Cup Day for her. Winn always buys Jackie flowers on that day and she loves them. Remembering Mum after 34 years, and we dress up and look pretty for the day.
As Mum when she wasn't ill was elegance personified. And we ring each other and ask,
"What are you putting on the Cup??"
One day we are going to go, me and my two sisters, and get our heels wet and wear stunning fashion and sip champagne as we can and she never could.And a song Dad requested to be played at his Funeral.Inspired by his "Nat"
Love to My Mother on This Melbourne Cup Day, best goddamn Mother in the world because she was "ours"
