Back from the country

The last few months have been a little disjointed as I've been back and forth to the country. The first trip was basically visiting my parents to a) spend more time with them and b) try and help my Dad relinquish some of his hording.

Not long after getting back to the city I heard that my uncle had passed away so it was back to the country for the funeral, check in with my Dad (it was his oldest and last surviving brother) and help him get down on paper the eulogy he'd been asked to deliver. It was good to be there with him, to support him in some way, and share with him his thoughts and feelings.

Helping writing the eulogy meant digging into my stoic father's memory. Aside from the usual anecdotes and factual chronology of my uncle's life there was a sudden detour. My father suddenly started crying like a small boy as he recalled a stream of events from his Depression years childhood - experiences of poverty, shame, and the small injustices dealt by life. Like so many of the pains we carry they were simple stories but sharp little memories nonetheless - ones that burr the mind and for my father, stowed deeply away and not spoken of for seventy odd years. Though I want to share these stories I think I'll wait a little while. I don't know if I have the ability to convey them with the sparse potency they deserve nor if they will be meaningful to anyone other than me and my father. Another time perhaps. But they did go a long way to explaining his eccentricities and enigmatic ways. Not to mention his incessant hording. They also brought a sharp reminder to me of what it meant emotionally to live through those long years of struggle.

I've always admired my father's ability to just get on with life in the face of adversity and I think so few of us realise that this kind of strength - I know my father isn't the only one - was forged with a great deal of quiet pain that had no place for expression- everyone was in the same boat, you were no more special, your burden no greater than any one else - so deal with it.

This can make you stronger, it can make you more generous, it can also make you a little bitter, sometimes a little meaner, a little isolated.

I'd heard Depression years stories from my Mum and Dad growing up but they were always the funny ones, or ones we at least would laugh at - like when they said their clothes were made out of flour sacks, they had no shoes or had to walk four miles to school - a hah hah hah yeah right! It's only as an adult that you realise these were understated truths. The bigger picture begins to fill out - a picture that is a lot sharper, sadder, tougher than any of our fanciful ideas of the "good old days". Sure, people like my parents are the biggest perpetrators of these fantasies but they of all people are entitled to a little spin.

Over the past years I've witnessed my father getting older and older, more frail and fragile. I've often said how reversed our respective roles become with time as our aging parents become more like children and we drift into caretaker roles. I never felt more like mothering my poor old dad then hearing his sad little childhood stories and wanted to kiss those bad memories away.

On the upside, those lean Depression years have made my Dad the best thrifting partner a girl could ask for. The day after his brother's funeral we hit the op-shops and garage sales for some therapy and were humbly rewarded.

I'll post pics of some of our finds shortly but in the meantime here's some pics of the scale-model of Sydney Central Station that I checked out there before my 5 1/2 hr train journey into country New South Wales.