Ashes
Without Prejudice
I have to write this as its fresh in my memory. Two days ago after much prompting from the Universe I went to a house in Dandenong where my Father had never lived but was supposedly buried here. I had my 2nd oldest child urging me on to do something about the rumour that my Dad had been left behind by a an ex of his. I was not sure if I was ready for the mental preparation of digging up my Dad's ashes.
The rumour mill was in Overdrive that he had been left under a rose bush at the abandoned house and that his wife at the time had gone nuts. I am not sure if she had or not but I was told the house was abandoned, she leaving years ago. It had been sold, was going to be bull dozed and 4 units to be built there. I had waited 4 days for others to go there as I didn't want to confront the whole situation and in the end as ever, I did it myself.
Some times in life, birth, death, emergencies, we have to just "Man" up and make decisions quickly and alone. Travel the sad journeys on our own. Or the ones where you just howl with laughter after.
So I loaded up the car with shovels and a trowel, gloves, always Miss Practical and a "Coper", idiot more like ! and took off for Dandenong. All week I had been feeling like making a garden for our deceased German Sheperd, who had been buried with many tears and all of our respect and love, in the backyard at Chez Femme. I couldn't even comtemplate what had happned to my Dad, but it was no longer my Dad, but a symbol of him. It was a journey I was ready to make on my own but enlisted Mara at the last minute.
Mara had lost a loved brother of 29 to suicide 2 years ago. I knew how much she worked on getting him a beautiful funeral and memorial built and Mara was more than proud of her achievements. Her parents and brother buried with honour and respect so I knew she would be glad to help me. We drove to the house and it looked abandoned and sad. weeds grew everywhere, gates looked, we didn't feel right being there and we had a tough time to find the rose bush. we had a hand drawn map, almost like a treasue Map, my Dad the treasure.
We gazed at the huge gnarled rose bush, now 15 years grown, limbs the size of babies forearms, vicious thornns an inch long on every branch which cut us like razor ribbon. We decided to dig it out somehow and we spent 2 hours of hot sweaty work in the endeavour. The skies were lowering and threatening rain and still we dug. Mara chopped at the thorns and borrowed my gloves which were stained with blood from the cuts. Sweat dribbled down inside the gloves anyway and caused intense stinging.
I sat in the mud and kicked at the tough old bush, it wouldn't budge. we took a break and sat in the backyard and wondered what life had been like for the people that lived there. My Dad had married the lady that had lived there six months before he died. None of my Family had gotten on with her save me. I had quite liked her and she was my age, my Dad at the time 33 years older than her. But when Dad died she had a breakdown and Mara had seen her a few years ago on an outing for a bus full of people with M. S. She had not been well then.
Dad had died at 76 from Prostate Cancer, he was told he was terminal and opted out of any treatment. He explained that he had had a good life, eight wonderful kids and a marvellous marriage to my Mum, Natalie. They fought every day, she the mover and shaker and he the placid dreamer. The stuffing when out of him after Mum died and he remarried within 18 months of her death. He admitted later it had been a mistake and said he had been through a death and a divorce and preferred the death, seriously.
So he had met C after his divorce, she lived upstairs from his humb;e flat in Dandenong and they were friends. She was alady that had a lot of trouble with her ex husband, had two teen girls and was always broke or in a mess. Dad seemed fond of her and I was happy for that. Dad was no good without a woman with him. My brother Ian said he lit up when a woman entered a room, any age. Dad Loved females and especially his own. Ian said Dad favoured us girls and I know he did. Mum favoured the boys, so they didn't miss out much.
Being my age C. and I liked some of the same things, The Angels, Doc Neeson, the old reprobate, especially. The rest of my family loathed her and I could never understand why. But she showed them a different face to the one she showed me. To me she was the sweet and harried woman that lived upstairs from Ernie, My Dad and stopped him from being lonely. Often popping down for a late night boubon with my Dad. He was a non drinker all his life so I was a bit surprised about that, but Dad loved the ladies and they were soon romantically involved I understood.
He began before that to be talking a bit too "sexually" explicitly for my Sister Jackie and I and she ticked him off. She was good at that. once she had he stopped it as she said it was disrespectful for him to be talking like that, Mum would never have put up with it, being not only a prude but Stiff Upper Lip British and such matters were not discussed in mixed company. Pity then she ended up mad, mouthing obscenities seemingly at will, but we knew it was just her illness that caused her to be like that.
He loved her, his Natalie, Dad. She was bright and funny and a genius who had been hurt and flawed and he loved her anyway and was with her to the last day. He was beyond devastated when she finally did what she had been trying to do for a while, kill herself nd we all bowed to her hard and solitary death and knew she was at peace at last. We knew at last she was with Jamie, a son she had not been allowed to grieve for properly. Just before she died she said she had lost Jamie in Woolies, he was "Lost" and so was she. Lost to us forever with a mental illness we could not fathom for years.
I think she had a lucid moment and could no longer being uncured, she had ECT several times and it didn't work. There was no SRI antidperessants in those days and my Doctor said if it had been nowadays she would not have been so ill. But she was and she chose her way out of her pain all by herself as she probably thought things were not going to get better. Someone told me years later my Mother had always said she never wanted to get old. I was shocked. I know at the last she was not well and the woman we knew as our Mother was no longer there. She had to have been terribly ill to leave behind Helen, my younger Sister, who was just 10 at the time.
Early photos of Mum and Dad show them beaming at Helen, 18 months old, at Jackies Wedding, both their eyes trained on Helen and not at the camera as Helen was a tiny little flowergirl. Mum began to get ill after Hlen was born, Mum was 42 and hated being pregnant, she never told us until she had a month to go. We had already sort of guessed as she was wearing big coverall aprons, that hid nothing.
I have to write this as its fresh in my memory. Two days ago after much prompting from the Universe I went to a house in Dandenong where my Father had never lived but was supposedly buried here. I had my 2nd oldest child urging me on to do something about the rumour that my Dad had been left behind by a an ex of his. I was not sure if I was ready for the mental preparation of digging up my Dad's ashes.
The rumour mill was in Overdrive that he had been left under a rose bush at the abandoned house and that his wife at the time had gone nuts. I am not sure if she had or not but I was told the house was abandoned, she leaving years ago. It had been sold, was going to be bull dozed and 4 units to be built there. I had waited 4 days for others to go there as I didn't want to confront the whole situation and in the end as ever, I did it myself.
Some times in life, birth, death, emergencies, we have to just "Man" up and make decisions quickly and alone. Travel the sad journeys on our own. Or the ones where you just howl with laughter after.
So I loaded up the car with shovels and a trowel, gloves, always Miss Practical and a "Coper", idiot more like ! and took off for Dandenong. All week I had been feeling like making a garden for our deceased German Sheperd, who had been buried with many tears and all of our respect and love, in the backyard at Chez Femme. I couldn't even comtemplate what had happned to my Dad, but it was no longer my Dad, but a symbol of him. It was a journey I was ready to make on my own but enlisted Mara at the last minute.
Mara had lost a loved brother of 29 to suicide 2 years ago. I knew how much she worked on getting him a beautiful funeral and memorial built and Mara was more than proud of her achievements. Her parents and brother buried with honour and respect so I knew she would be glad to help me. We drove to the house and it looked abandoned and sad. weeds grew everywhere, gates looked, we didn't feel right being there and we had a tough time to find the rose bush. we had a hand drawn map, almost like a treasue Map, my Dad the treasure.
We gazed at the huge gnarled rose bush, now 15 years grown, limbs the size of babies forearms, vicious thornns an inch long on every branch which cut us like razor ribbon. We decided to dig it out somehow and we spent 2 hours of hot sweaty work in the endeavour. The skies were lowering and threatening rain and still we dug. Mara chopped at the thorns and borrowed my gloves which were stained with blood from the cuts. Sweat dribbled down inside the gloves anyway and caused intense stinging.
I sat in the mud and kicked at the tough old bush, it wouldn't budge. we took a break and sat in the backyard and wondered what life had been like for the people that lived there. My Dad had married the lady that had lived there six months before he died. None of my Family had gotten on with her save me. I had quite liked her and she was my age, my Dad at the time 33 years older than her. But when Dad died she had a breakdown and Mara had seen her a few years ago on an outing for a bus full of people with M. S. She had not been well then.
Dad had died at 76 from Prostate Cancer, he was told he was terminal and opted out of any treatment. He explained that he had had a good life, eight wonderful kids and a marvellous marriage to my Mum, Natalie. They fought every day, she the mover and shaker and he the placid dreamer. The stuffing when out of him after Mum died and he remarried within 18 months of her death. He admitted later it had been a mistake and said he had been through a death and a divorce and preferred the death, seriously.
So he had met C after his divorce, she lived upstairs from his humb;e flat in Dandenong and they were friends. She was alady that had a lot of trouble with her ex husband, had two teen girls and was always broke or in a mess. Dad seemed fond of her and I was happy for that. Dad was no good without a woman with him. My brother Ian said he lit up when a woman entered a room, any age. Dad Loved females and especially his own. Ian said Dad favoured us girls and I know he did. Mum favoured the boys, so they didn't miss out much.
Being my age C. and I liked some of the same things, The Angels, Doc Neeson, the old reprobate, especially. The rest of my family loathed her and I could never understand why. But she showed them a different face to the one she showed me. To me she was the sweet and harried woman that lived upstairs from Ernie, My Dad and stopped him from being lonely. Often popping down for a late night boubon with my Dad. He was a non drinker all his life so I was a bit surprised about that, but Dad loved the ladies and they were soon romantically involved I understood.
He began before that to be talking a bit too "sexually" explicitly for my Sister Jackie and I and she ticked him off. She was good at that. once she had he stopped it as she said it was disrespectful for him to be talking like that, Mum would never have put up with it, being not only a prude but Stiff Upper Lip British and such matters were not discussed in mixed company. Pity then she ended up mad, mouthing obscenities seemingly at will, but we knew it was just her illness that caused her to be like that.
He loved her, his Natalie, Dad. She was bright and funny and a genius who had been hurt and flawed and he loved her anyway and was with her to the last day. He was beyond devastated when she finally did what she had been trying to do for a while, kill herself nd we all bowed to her hard and solitary death and knew she was at peace at last. We knew at last she was with Jamie, a son she had not been allowed to grieve for properly. Just before she died she said she had lost Jamie in Woolies, he was "Lost" and so was she. Lost to us forever with a mental illness we could not fathom for years.
I think she had a lucid moment and could no longer being uncured, she had ECT several times and it didn't work. There was no SRI antidperessants in those days and my Doctor said if it had been nowadays she would not have been so ill. But she was and she chose her way out of her pain all by herself as she probably thought things were not going to get better. Someone told me years later my Mother had always said she never wanted to get old. I was shocked. I know at the last she was not well and the woman we knew as our Mother was no longer there. She had to have been terribly ill to leave behind Helen, my younger Sister, who was just 10 at the time.
Early photos of Mum and Dad show them beaming at Helen, 18 months old, at Jackies Wedding, both their eyes trained on Helen and not at the camera as Helen was a tiny little flowergirl. Mum began to get ill after Hlen was born, Mum was 42 and hated being pregnant, she never told us until she had a month to go. We had already sort of guessed as she was wearing big coverall aprons, that hid nothing.
