Rescuing Mara
Without Prejudice
I'm sure she didn't want to be saved and especially by us. But when I received a call from Alena, concerned about Mara I had to help. We, Alena and I had to help. Mara had been with us from 13 and was now 18. She had hooked up with R, who was a likeable rogue and who adored Mara. He was on drugs we knew that much and had to suspect Mara was also on drugs, bad drugs, speed and heroin.
We heard through the grapevine that R. had been "done" for an armed robbery. Mara was innocent but caught up somehow in the whole mess. We listened and waited but no news came through the trusty grapevine. My old fiance N and I had a few weeks earlier gone to a flat in Potter St Dandenong and helped her move her furniture out. I didn't comment on the flat, Mara was badly shaken up, nervous, upset but insisted we just store her stuff and she'd be in touch.
I won't comment on the flat as I have seen them before, mess, people lying around or racing around. N and I left and he was very concerned about Mara. I said she had to hit rock bottom or I couldn't help her but I was also very concerned. I was sad at her state but somehow had a lot of faith in Mara, she was strong, street wise and had a strong spiritual side.
Mara is a person that hates to be wrong and stands staunch on her views and cannot be changed. But that Mara was gone and in her place a stranger had appeared. Still caring, as Mara is always caring but she was easily affected by peer pressure and somehow her life was going backwards, the slippery slide.Lm .xsszx
Alena rang me and said a bank statement had come for Mara at her address. Alena the reason Mara was with us in the first place. Alena my youngest daughter, now. She was 14 when Mara came to stay with us, the day Mara who had lost her Mother at 11, found out that my youngest daughter, lauren, her school mate had died. Mara was closer to Alena as she was that little bit older and more of a rebel than Lauren. She came around to be of comfort to Alena and just stayed.
Alena had opened the bank statement and there were bank withdrawals in Adelaide. I was surprised, what was Mara doing in Adelaide? Alena thought she had gone on the run with R. Adelaide???
Then it clicked,
"She has a sister in Adelaide"
Mara had not been around her family much since she left home at 13 to stay with us. I knew the 2 sisters,both I had met once and they were fine, one Tanya, older than Mara and One Biliinja. They weren't impressed with Mara leaving home and leaving them to look after their Dad, who was not well mentally. But Mara was a rebel and wanted a better life and saw that as us. And we loved her anyway.
Or I did from day one, so defiant, so hurt, so Mara.
I knew Mara had an unusual last name, so I told Alena to check out the white pages and she did and rang me back excitedly. there was a person with that name living in Adelaide. I reasoned that when we fall down, as every one does, we go home to Family. Mara was in Adelaide and hiding for some reason.
Alena and I jittered around what the best thing to do was and in the end I knew Alena was talking to her Dad and he had a friend in the Police Force. I left it to Alena to do her work and we found out Mara was locked up in S. A. and R had been extradited back to Victoria.To face armed robbery charges. We simply expected Mara to be back in Melbourne too.
When we heard nothing Alena went to the dealers in Dandenong. They said she was back and living in a house in Doveton and back on the "gear". Alena went to every dealer in Dandenong and threatened them with death if they sold to her.
Then Alena went to the house. She wouldn't go in but she knew Mara was there. Alena won't go in to druggie houses, so she would sit outside every day with Jade and Tegan a baby and honk the horn,
"Come with me Mara, come to my house, me and Dean will take care of you"
Every day for two weeks Alena returned, same messsage.
Finally Mara got so fed up with her annoying behaviour that she went with Alena, just hopped in the car and went.
Alena and Dean made rules with her. She could smoke as much as she wanted but no drugs of any kind. She had to withraw cold turkey and do as she was told for 12 months. She to her credit stayed clean, smoking MJ only to replace one addiction with another. There has to be a replacement somewhere, a crutch, then weaning of MJ.
There was once Alena thought she was high and called dean and he grabbed Mara and pushed her head towards the mirror.
"See what you look like, look at yourself, your high and a disgrace"
Mara didn't touch it again. I went up to see her after I returned from Ireland.
"Why aren't you working?' I said sternly.
She gave me all the excuses under the sun. I grabbed the local paper and she circled jobs.
"You are to be in work by the end of the week", I said
"Or I will be back to see you " And I left.
She was working with in the week.
And at her job met her future husband. She shed the old life and didn't hang around with anyone from the past. Her ex R cried when she broke it off with him, she knew she had to close off all associations. he had been given a 7 year sentence and Mara was done with bad boys.
She wanted normal things, a husband a family. She had made up her own mind about that. And she was young enough to mke a full recovery. The Family Doctor saying she had to view it as just a small part of her life. She experimented with drugs and found they were not for her. Mara found out years later, she never really was an addict, she hated the stuff but went along to be like everyone else.
I asked her one day what was her moment, what made her turn back to the normal life.
"Alena", she said.
"How do you mean ?'
"She wouldn't give up on me. neither would Dean, they harrassed me to give up"
And she told me of her darkest days, the arrest of R in Adelaide. How she too was arrested and put in a jail facility. How she was too ashamed to say she was an addict and went through withdrawal. She laughed at that as if she had said she was an addict, she found out later, they would have helped her through it with meds.
But she hit rock bottom when she realised she didn't want to live like an urchin anymore. Alena was happy with man and babies ans was Deb and Yvette. Her foster/real sisters. they cared about her whether she liked it or not. And I liked and loved her so she had plenty going for her.
In her lost past Her Father died and she didn't find out for 6 months.
She had been pulled over in a car and horror of horrors it was a policeman that knew her,
he informed her that her Father had died and she was distraught. Why had her brothers and sisters not told her. Why??? Was she not somehow good enough for them ? She knew they had avoided her when she was in trouble. But she continued to love them.
She opened up about dark days, when she thought she was going to go nuts, alone, frightened and called on her God to help. And He did.She knew somehow that the real Mara was within, the core of strength that runs through her.And always will. Her strength her Mother. Mara's Mother was a beautiful person. She adored all her kids. She accepted the "New" country of Australia. Both Mara's parents were immigrants from the old Yugoslavia.
her Father a Partisan in the Army who was affected mentally by the war. He also was a paranoid schizophrenic and spent periods in the old Mont Park mental Facilty. Her Mother held the family together as Tony fell apart and in his rages hit her and Mara would scream at him and stop him beating her. Mara hated her Dad then.
And when her Mum died her world fell apart. The kids were put in Allambie and they all ran away except Mara. Well, she was running away too but they left her behind. She ran after them but they were gone and she alone was left at the Childrens Home.
She ended up liking it as a male Teacher too her under his wing and wanted to adopt her. She siad th kids home was full of kids that were so young and in so much trouble, lighting fires, hurting themselves. But she liked the stability and was not happy with her Family for leaving her behind.
There was George or Dragan, Tanya, Zoran, Bilianja,Eddie And Marco or Max. Before the Mum died there was a gorgeous baby boy who died, Oscar. He was 8 months old and died of Meningitis. Mara cried and cried and she said she heard her brother crying loud hard sobs for the baby. The baby was gorgeous Mara said, and he just died.
Her parents were not ones for going to the Doctors much. They had money, they had apparently owned a Hotel in Dandenong and made money and bought the house in Keysborough outright. So they were not poor but the Dad was known in the neighbourhood for being "nuts", threatening his neighbours with violence and tripping back to the war.
I saw him shuffling around Parkmore more than once. Sometimes he had cotton buds sticking out of his ears, his hair long and rankly greasy. he was a lost soul and I felt sad for him. He always recognised me and always said the same thing,
"You tell Mara, come Home"
"Tony, she's not coming home",
He would walk off his shuffling gait and looks showing his ilness.
The Social workers told me that he refused to believe his wife was ill. She was diagnosed with breast cancer too late and died within 6 weeks. She didn't want her children to see her the way she was when she was finally hospitalised.
But they did see her frail and dying. Mara was told at School at 11 by the Principal, kindly and with great sorrow that her Mother had died. She said they expected her to break down there but she wouldn't and waited till she got home.
After Allambie Mara would no longer settle at home. She lived at friends houses and went home when she felt like it. She avoided the family and her Dad. DHS put a Housekeeper in to the house to avoid the older girls being exoected to do eveything for the Dad and the boys. No one liked her of course and they hard timed her. Especially Mara.
And when Mara came to us at first she would sit at the bench and say,
" Who Cares?"
She tried to sneak out, she smoked, she lied, she was a little rebel from day one and thought she knew best. Always. Yvette dubbed her "Little Miss, Little Miss can't be wrong" and it was hard to make Mara listen. She was dancing to her own tune and we could only watch.
I was very strict with Mara, super strict. I caught her trying to sneak out once to meet with some Carnie Boys, she had only been with me 3 weeks or so. I caught her and pinned her up against the wall by the throat,
"You ever try that again and I will Kill you, do you understand ?". I said my face inches from hers.
She just nodded and I let her go. She knew who was boss.
She went to school every day for a change and turned out to be super bright and started getting A's. She would rush home to show me. I had to teach her everything she had missed since Mum died. Hygeine, grooming, manners, dress.
I made her talk to the Social Worker Prue, who Mara hated as she was a "try Hard", who wore green ankle boots or purple and long skirts. Mara thought she was like some teachers that try too hard to connect with the kids.
I made her stop avoiding Prue and realise Prue was there to help her. The parents had left Money via the State Trustees and Mara only had to open her mouth and she could have money for teeth and books and clothes. Mara started seeing it as less of a threat and more of a benefit, DHS;s involvement.
DHS had rung with in 3 weeks of Mara coming to stay to tell me. They told me Mara was through no fault of hers, a ward of the state, for her protection only till 16. I had to take out proper guardianship of her to allow her to stay and I did. Childrens Court in the city, Mara whining and fidgeting but it was all done and properly.
She was mine, I was hers at least till she was 16 anyway. And boy were we in for a hell of a ride
She turned to heroin with Russ, was jailed, back on the gear Hu Hum I don't even like her anymore never mind anything else. Stupid, she turns against the family then expects to still be friends with my friends as she has none of her own. Ivan, Shane, Clint, Kyle, all males tell you anything ????? Go away you creepy little girl go and duck under the rock you came out from with your BIG boyfriend. He wrote a libellous statement about me. This always amuses me about people that live in glass houses like he does.
To Be Continued.......Love Janbette
I'm sure she didn't want to be saved and especially by us. But when I received a call from Alena, concerned about Mara I had to help. We, Alena and I had to help. Mara had been with us from 13 and was now 18. She had hooked up with R, who was a likeable rogue and who adored Mara. He was on drugs we knew that much and had to suspect Mara was also on drugs, bad drugs, speed and heroin.
We heard through the grapevine that R. had been "done" for an armed robbery. Mara was innocent but caught up somehow in the whole mess. We listened and waited but no news came through the trusty grapevine. My old fiance N and I had a few weeks earlier gone to a flat in Potter St Dandenong and helped her move her furniture out. I didn't comment on the flat, Mara was badly shaken up, nervous, upset but insisted we just store her stuff and she'd be in touch.
I won't comment on the flat as I have seen them before, mess, people lying around or racing around. N and I left and he was very concerned about Mara. I said she had to hit rock bottom or I couldn't help her but I was also very concerned. I was sad at her state but somehow had a lot of faith in Mara, she was strong, street wise and had a strong spiritual side.
Mara is a person that hates to be wrong and stands staunch on her views and cannot be changed. But that Mara was gone and in her place a stranger had appeared. Still caring, as Mara is always caring but she was easily affected by peer pressure and somehow her life was going backwards, the slippery slide.Lm .xsszx
Alena rang me and said a bank statement had come for Mara at her address. Alena the reason Mara was with us in the first place. Alena my youngest daughter, now. She was 14 when Mara came to stay with us, the day Mara who had lost her Mother at 11, found out that my youngest daughter, lauren, her school mate had died. Mara was closer to Alena as she was that little bit older and more of a rebel than Lauren. She came around to be of comfort to Alena and just stayed.
Alena had opened the bank statement and there were bank withdrawals in Adelaide. I was surprised, what was Mara doing in Adelaide? Alena thought she had gone on the run with R. Adelaide???
Then it clicked,
"She has a sister in Adelaide"
Mara had not been around her family much since she left home at 13 to stay with us. I knew the 2 sisters,both I had met once and they were fine, one Tanya, older than Mara and One Biliinja. They weren't impressed with Mara leaving home and leaving them to look after their Dad, who was not well mentally. But Mara was a rebel and wanted a better life and saw that as us. And we loved her anyway.
Or I did from day one, so defiant, so hurt, so Mara.
I knew Mara had an unusual last name, so I told Alena to check out the white pages and she did and rang me back excitedly. there was a person with that name living in Adelaide. I reasoned that when we fall down, as every one does, we go home to Family. Mara was in Adelaide and hiding for some reason.
Alena and I jittered around what the best thing to do was and in the end I knew Alena was talking to her Dad and he had a friend in the Police Force. I left it to Alena to do her work and we found out Mara was locked up in S. A. and R had been extradited back to Victoria.To face armed robbery charges. We simply expected Mara to be back in Melbourne too.
When we heard nothing Alena went to the dealers in Dandenong. They said she was back and living in a house in Doveton and back on the "gear". Alena went to every dealer in Dandenong and threatened them with death if they sold to her.
Then Alena went to the house. She wouldn't go in but she knew Mara was there. Alena won't go in to druggie houses, so she would sit outside every day with Jade and Tegan a baby and honk the horn,
"Come with me Mara, come to my house, me and Dean will take care of you"
Every day for two weeks Alena returned, same messsage.
Finally Mara got so fed up with her annoying behaviour that she went with Alena, just hopped in the car and went.
Alena and Dean made rules with her. She could smoke as much as she wanted but no drugs of any kind. She had to withraw cold turkey and do as she was told for 12 months. She to her credit stayed clean, smoking MJ only to replace one addiction with another. There has to be a replacement somewhere, a crutch, then weaning of MJ.
There was once Alena thought she was high and called dean and he grabbed Mara and pushed her head towards the mirror.
"See what you look like, look at yourself, your high and a disgrace"
Mara didn't touch it again. I went up to see her after I returned from Ireland.
"Why aren't you working?' I said sternly.
She gave me all the excuses under the sun. I grabbed the local paper and she circled jobs.
"You are to be in work by the end of the week", I said
"Or I will be back to see you " And I left.
She was working with in the week.
And at her job met her future husband. She shed the old life and didn't hang around with anyone from the past. Her ex R cried when she broke it off with him, she knew she had to close off all associations. he had been given a 7 year sentence and Mara was done with bad boys.
She wanted normal things, a husband a family. She had made up her own mind about that. And she was young enough to mke a full recovery. The Family Doctor saying she had to view it as just a small part of her life. She experimented with drugs and found they were not for her. Mara found out years later, she never really was an addict, she hated the stuff but went along to be like everyone else.
I asked her one day what was her moment, what made her turn back to the normal life.
"Alena", she said.
"How do you mean ?'
"She wouldn't give up on me. neither would Dean, they harrassed me to give up"
And she told me of her darkest days, the arrest of R in Adelaide. How she too was arrested and put in a jail facility. How she was too ashamed to say she was an addict and went through withdrawal. She laughed at that as if she had said she was an addict, she found out later, they would have helped her through it with meds.
But she hit rock bottom when she realised she didn't want to live like an urchin anymore. Alena was happy with man and babies ans was Deb and Yvette. Her foster/real sisters. they cared about her whether she liked it or not. And I liked and loved her so she had plenty going for her.
In her lost past Her Father died and she didn't find out for 6 months.
She had been pulled over in a car and horror of horrors it was a policeman that knew her,
he informed her that her Father had died and she was distraught. Why had her brothers and sisters not told her. Why??? Was she not somehow good enough for them ? She knew they had avoided her when she was in trouble. But she continued to love them.
She opened up about dark days, when she thought she was going to go nuts, alone, frightened and called on her God to help. And He did.She knew somehow that the real Mara was within, the core of strength that runs through her.And always will. Her strength her Mother. Mara's Mother was a beautiful person. She adored all her kids. She accepted the "New" country of Australia. Both Mara's parents were immigrants from the old Yugoslavia.
her Father a Partisan in the Army who was affected mentally by the war. He also was a paranoid schizophrenic and spent periods in the old Mont Park mental Facilty. Her Mother held the family together as Tony fell apart and in his rages hit her and Mara would scream at him and stop him beating her. Mara hated her Dad then.
And when her Mum died her world fell apart. The kids were put in Allambie and they all ran away except Mara. Well, she was running away too but they left her behind. She ran after them but they were gone and she alone was left at the Childrens Home.
She ended up liking it as a male Teacher too her under his wing and wanted to adopt her. She siad th kids home was full of kids that were so young and in so much trouble, lighting fires, hurting themselves. But she liked the stability and was not happy with her Family for leaving her behind.
There was George or Dragan, Tanya, Zoran, Bilianja,Eddie And Marco or Max. Before the Mum died there was a gorgeous baby boy who died, Oscar. He was 8 months old and died of Meningitis. Mara cried and cried and she said she heard her brother crying loud hard sobs for the baby. The baby was gorgeous Mara said, and he just died.
Her parents were not ones for going to the Doctors much. They had money, they had apparently owned a Hotel in Dandenong and made money and bought the house in Keysborough outright. So they were not poor but the Dad was known in the neighbourhood for being "nuts", threatening his neighbours with violence and tripping back to the war.
I saw him shuffling around Parkmore more than once. Sometimes he had cotton buds sticking out of his ears, his hair long and rankly greasy. he was a lost soul and I felt sad for him. He always recognised me and always said the same thing,
"You tell Mara, come Home"
"Tony, she's not coming home",
He would walk off his shuffling gait and looks showing his ilness.
The Social workers told me that he refused to believe his wife was ill. She was diagnosed with breast cancer too late and died within 6 weeks. She didn't want her children to see her the way she was when she was finally hospitalised.
But they did see her frail and dying. Mara was told at School at 11 by the Principal, kindly and with great sorrow that her Mother had died. She said they expected her to break down there but she wouldn't and waited till she got home.
After Allambie Mara would no longer settle at home. She lived at friends houses and went home when she felt like it. She avoided the family and her Dad. DHS put a Housekeeper in to the house to avoid the older girls being exoected to do eveything for the Dad and the boys. No one liked her of course and they hard timed her. Especially Mara.
And when Mara came to us at first she would sit at the bench and say,
" Who Cares?"
She tried to sneak out, she smoked, she lied, she was a little rebel from day one and thought she knew best. Always. Yvette dubbed her "Little Miss, Little Miss can't be wrong" and it was hard to make Mara listen. She was dancing to her own tune and we could only watch.
I was very strict with Mara, super strict. I caught her trying to sneak out once to meet with some Carnie Boys, she had only been with me 3 weeks or so. I caught her and pinned her up against the wall by the throat,
"You ever try that again and I will Kill you, do you understand ?". I said my face inches from hers.
She just nodded and I let her go. She knew who was boss.
She went to school every day for a change and turned out to be super bright and started getting A's. She would rush home to show me. I had to teach her everything she had missed since Mum died. Hygeine, grooming, manners, dress.
I made her talk to the Social Worker Prue, who Mara hated as she was a "try Hard", who wore green ankle boots or purple and long skirts. Mara thought she was like some teachers that try too hard to connect with the kids.
I made her stop avoiding Prue and realise Prue was there to help her. The parents had left Money via the State Trustees and Mara only had to open her mouth and she could have money for teeth and books and clothes. Mara started seeing it as less of a threat and more of a benefit, DHS;s involvement.
DHS had rung with in 3 weeks of Mara coming to stay to tell me. They told me Mara was through no fault of hers, a ward of the state, for her protection only till 16. I had to take out proper guardianship of her to allow her to stay and I did. Childrens Court in the city, Mara whining and fidgeting but it was all done and properly.
She was mine, I was hers at least till she was 16 anyway. And boy were we in for a hell of a ride
She turned to heroin with Russ, was jailed, back on the gear Hu Hum I don't even like her anymore never mind anything else. Stupid, she turns against the family then expects to still be friends with my friends as she has none of her own. Ivan, Shane, Clint, Kyle, all males tell you anything ????? Go away you creepy little girl go and duck under the rock you came out from with your BIG boyfriend. He wrote a libellous statement about me. This always amuses me about people that live in glass houses like he does.
To Be Continued.......Love Janbette
