A Family Affair

Where do I begin this tale of a family affair?  Does it begin under a lamp post in Kings Cross, Sydney, where my husband asked me to marry him?  Or does it begin in a dusty, dry, sparsely-populated town in Western Australia where my first son was born, in the local hospital where he shared the nursery with an aboriginal baby?  My husband and this baby’s three sisters trudged up the hill to visit us in the shimmering heat.

 

We returned eastward to Sydney after about twelve months and our younger son joined the family. We remained in Sydney, but our West Australian experience shaped our spirits in ways we had not predicted. We crossed our vast continent idealistic and immature. We returned more self reliant, the desert and harsh environment grounding us in the realities of outback life; freer to create new patterns of open-ness and care for others within our family; more engaged with present reality and less concerned with what might be one day.

 

We did not know then that our westward trek would create a family pattern of travel, open-ness to all peoples and possibilities, and a willingness to explore the unknown.

 

I look at them now; five grown-ups, their partners and their children, scattered across the globe, exploring themselves and their talents; open, welcoming, learning and growing. The trek back east to Sydney was merely a half-way house to a pathway along which they would proceed out into the world.

 

Last night I had a dream, the like of which I had never had before.  I was naked in public. I woke up gasping. What is the meaning of this?  A seventy-five year old woman is best never seen naked, least of all in public!  I was walking with a friend who was somehow concealing me with her coat and scarf.  But then she was no longer with me, and I was within another group of people.  To my astonishment they seemed not to notice or care about my nakedness.  I was accepted as me; I fitted in.

 

My son suggested I write a blog. My daughter-in-law introduced me to Facebook.  My grandson set up my blog.  Grace-filled teachers have held my hand, and launched me into a world where it is okay just to be me.  No more, no less, and with no pretence.  Just me, a mother, wife, grandmother, and friend, open and vulnerable to you all.

 

Margaret Ó