b r a v e c r e a t u r e s

Life here in London has been so wonderful, its hard sometimes to reach back to a year or so ago when things were so bad. But just when you least expect it, the past reaches forward to remind you.

This morning I got an email from my ex, James to tell me that my wonderful dog, Saxon, has died - suddenly and unexpectedly.

Apparently he had been happy and not at all unwell. He had been coughing sometimes after eating or drinking for some weeks and had had a series of investigations including a gastroscopy and barium swallow without finding any problem.

On Monday night (11 Feb), about 15 minutes after his dinner on Monday he was found dead in the front garden. He was buried in his garden with his favourite blanket.

During the dark years of 2004-2006, Saxon was the brightest thing in my life. It was a tough decision to give him up, but having him stay with my ex's mother, who adored him, seemed like a really good decision for both him and me.

I have missed him, and still talk about him all the time. Its really sad to think that I can now never go back to play with him - but I have so many good memories of him that in some ways, while Iam still alive, part of him is too.

For those of you who know me, you are well aware that 2005 is down as Annus horribilis for me and my loved ones. Death, desertion, divorce, dismemberment, depression, illness, unemployment, car accidents, theft, bad investments, money problems and a Liberal re-election. Truely a crappo year.

Funnily enough, looking back on it, while lots went REALLY wrong I have to say that my abiding memory of the year is that lots went really right. There is only one thing that is really bleak about 2005, but its probably the most important thing to me. Losing the love of your life is, as they say, a bit of a bummer. But I have come out of it with a list of wins that I am really happy with. Tres lucky, I am.

To me it felt like the corner was turned for 2005 just before Christmas when my mother came through her cancer operation with flying colours. Today that substantial win was compounded. I will again let my mother speak for herself in this excert from her email to friends and family.

To all of you who have helped me thru this rather dreadful time in my life, my news is suddenly such that the dance of the fairies is in the seeable future for me. Thanks to all of your prayers and for whatever other reasons may apply, I have just received a phone call from the Gold Coast Hospital with wonderful news.

My operation was done in consultation with the Royal Brisbane Hospital and their cancer experts. News has just been relayed to the Gold Coast to say that while they had told me that I would require chemotherapy, I do not need it after all. My hospital will keep an eye on me, but they believe that chemo is not necessary.

To say that I am over the moon, and have improved my state of health from 25% to 50% in the past half hour is the understatement of the year.

You REALLY cant keep the old girl down. At 74, shirley is still a force of nature.

Christmas has been very low key this year. I am on the Gold Coast with my mother who is just out of hospital and recovering from a pretty big operation. She is doing really well, but it made for a low key day and since we are both being careful with money, we put an embargo on present, which of course I broke for her. 

The following is a letter from my mother to her email correspondents, of which she has hundreds. I thought it worth reproducing here.

Somehow I have pulled my self together completely, and the conclusion I came to? That Christmas did not have to mean presents and a big turkey/seafood meal, but love. And that I have received in abundance, and I feel that I am enjoying the most wonderful Christmas ever.

Not only have I been inundated and surrounded with love, but I have gone thru a very large operation, come out the other side, and now, with just a little pain, I am on the way to a full recovery. I have spoken around the world and your care and concern has helped me to handle this little hic up in life.

To all of my friends, rellies, caring acquaintances and most of all my doctors, I give up thanks in abundance.

To all of you, enjoy the day with loved ones and count the many blessings

My mother is currently recovering in the Gold Coast Hospital from an operation for bowel cancer. It looks like she is going to be ok, but this has (of course) had me thinking about her a lot. This is my telling of one of my favorite of her stories.

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After six weeks away from home, she was starting to really miss the kids. They were both in their teens now, and the divorce had really shaken them up. Then to loose the house as well, they were a little fragile. But it had been time for her to get out and do something, go somewhere, have an adventure. She picked up her next card and worried that this may have been a bad move.

The car was filled with smoke from those nasty Italian cigarettes so as she looked around the room and the other players, their uniforms rumpled and askew; things seemed a little more than slightly surreal. The mint juleps were probably not helping, what did they put in them anyway? What the WAS a julep anyhow?

As she raised the bet, she looked out the window at the mountainous Swiss countryside blurring past. Snippets of it briefly illuminated by the lights of the train, only to vanish again into the darkness before it could really be recognized; an impressionist nightscape outside, a surreal world of smoke and velvet inside.

It was like she was riding through Macarthur’s Park. All she needed to see now was loves, hot fevered iron, she was already wearing a strip-ed pair of pants.

Her trip on the Orient Express was going to be memorable at least. And while there wasn’t going to be a murder, it looked like she at least would make a killing tonight.

“Full House, Royals and Aces High” she said as she laid her cards down. Groans and curses in four languages came from the crew as they threw their hands on the table. “You boys are all so sweet” she said “and I seem to be getting the hang of this game”. She pulled the pile of money from the centre of the table to join the large pile of winnings in front of her as she turned to Jean-Phillip, her cabin attendant, and said “would you be a dear and run to the dinning car to get me another drink? This one seems about done”.

Turning back to the rest of the crew she said “now just ONE more round of this interesting game before I HAVE to go back to my cabin and write to my little loves, they will be missing me so”.

Sometimes things happen in life that make you pause and reflect, and parents becoming sick is a big one.

My mother is currently recovering in hospital after a pretty serious operation. She was diagnosed a few weeks ago with bowel cancer and they were extremely keen to get in there and remove it. On top of that there were a few other things wrong which complicated matters, the most serious of which was an aortic anurism - a thinning of the wall of the major blood vessel coming from the heart.

If anything were to go wrong with that during the operation there would be, as the doctors like to understate, nothing that could be done.

Things like that really start you thinking about your life. Well it does for me at least.

My childhood was not the easiest. I am not complaining here, most of us can lay some claim to a troubled childhood, I am just telling it how it is from my perspective.

My parents seperated and divorced when I was about 10 years old and that put a lot of pressure on all of us. They both had their own businesses, but they really struggled to deal with the divorce AND run them. While I didnt understand it at the time, now I can really relate to the pressure the loss of a relationship can put you under.

My sister, who is 6 years older than me was OUT OF THERE. She left just before she turned 18 to go to university and never looked back. To this day she has nothing to do with my mother. While this is incredibly sad, its mostly for her. She is not a very happy person to be honest.

So it was just my mother and me, and that was tough. We are similar enough to make things a little tempestuous. Over the years we have had our share of fights and disagreements, and there was a time when we really didnt talk much at all, but in the last 10 years, things have really changed.

I guess we both stopped dealing from our assumptions and began to learn about each other again. Not the easiest thing for mother and son to do, but circumstances demanded it. I guess I get my inquiring mind from her, at least in part, because we have both really enjoy exploring people. So we have found ways to explore each other a fresh. And while she STILL Drives me nuts at times, I actually really like who my mother is.

My mother is an incredibly expansive woman, she occupies a lot of space, even though she is quite small. She is excited about everything, pleased to see everyone, remembers details and loves to make a production and an event out of the smallest thing. She is gracious and generous, and she really tries to do the best for everyone. She is not without fault, but as long as you are prepared to sit back and enjoy the ride, she is a lot of fun. Problems only start if you try to control her, because it just cant be done.

I know this is kind of sentimental so if you need to reach for the insulin please do so. Things have been tough the last month or so and I wont pretend otherwise, I have been really scared that I am going to lose her now as opposed to some undefined time in the future.

But if I do lose her, I can honestly say that we have shared a wonderful relationship, particularly over the last seven or so years. We havent wasted our time together.

As they say “Life is a Banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death”. Lucky for me, my mother taught me to eat with both hands.

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As a brief postscript, my mother came through her operation and is doing fine. Things are looking great and she is recovering very quickly. I am very thankful.

You would think that the prospect of a two hour walk to get home after midnight would deter most people, but eleven year olds can get funny ideas sometimes. And I was always a particularly stubborn one.

It was summer holidays and I had been at work with my father all day, helping out and trying to spend time together. Predictably the divorce had made creating a connection between us difficult and I think he was trying to find ways for us to get closer. Hanging out in the office wasn’t really the answer, but it was worth trying.

End of the day he had decided to take me to his favourite restaurant, the Leichhardt Tavern, for dinner and a few drinks with his friend Len Rigby who drank too much. Both my parents drank a lot during the years of the divorce, which was tough on me and my sister, so anything that encouraged them to drink more was not wonderful. Len was not my favourite person.

The Leichhardt was a pretty standard pub restaurant that had pushed up market, up market that is for Brisbane circa 1980; ferns, down lighting and travertine. The big attraction for my Father was his new girl friend, the barmaid Gillian; a tall, dark haired, calculating woman with oversized nipples and a very forward manner.

She was the sort of woman who seduced just about every man she met on one level or another. At least she tried. In my case, even if I hadn’t hated her for taking my mothers place, she was talking a foreign language. I knew what she was doing, but it was meaningless to me.

Between the two of then, Len and Gillian, my father was keep pretty distracted for most of the evening. So much for quality time.

Around 11.30, after four hours of this another bottle of wine was ordered and Gillian was finishing. It looked like things were going to kick on for a while yet. That was the point I snapped. So I excused myself, to go to the bathroom I think was the excuse, and headed for the door. It didn’t seem that far home. And I was pretty sure I knew the way. And in any case, I was pissed off. So I just left.

I think part of what I was doing was an attention getting exercise, but I was also out to show my Father that it was not ok to ignore me. So I started walking.

Late at night, and for an 11 year old, Brisbane is pretty quiet. Not much traffic and what there is, is pretty industrial. The streets between the city and where I lived were pretty grungy, at least to begin with. I suppose I should have been scared, but it was kind of exhilarating.

About 1/3rd of the way, dads friend Len found me. He pulled up beside me and told me how angry Dad was with me and that if I didn’t get in the car right away so he could take me back, there would be no end of trouble.

The problem for him was that at this point, I had gotten a taste of independence and I was not letting it go. I told him that I was not getting in the car, I was going to continue walking home. If Dad wanted to talk to me he could do so himself. And if Len go any ideas about making me, I would fight him and scream for the police. If he wanted to be up on a sexual abuse charge with a minor, he was welcome to it.

Len backed off. I walked home.

Dad caught up with me just as I arrived outside the house my mother and I were living in. He was furious, but he also recognized that I was just standing up for what I believed in. We made our peace in the car and agreed not to tell mum about it.

My Father had realized that I was not just a child any more and I think it was at that point that we started to develop a relationship based on mutual respect.

This is one of the assignments for my screenwriting class at school. I had to produce a letter to someone from the past to whom I could no longer speak. Writing it was a really wonderful experience, so I thought I would share it here.

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Dear Alan,

I remember telling you, in about 1990, that it was too late for us to have the same sort of relationship anymore. That it had to change – or to end. I remember being really clear with you on it, and you taking it surprisingly well. Given how much of a change I was expecting, it is surprising to me now that you took it so well. And knowing what I know now, knowing how much I miss you, I regret not trying harder.

I still remember the day you called my in 1995 with the news. It was January 15th, the day before my birthday. Why do things like this always happen on, or around my birthday? You called out of the blue to tell me that you had to go into hospital for another operation.

ANOTHER?

After the first cancer scare, you had promised to never leave me in the dark on something like that again, so here you were with the news that you were going back into hospital (BACK) for another operation (ANOTHER). You always were the king of the fucking understatement.

Two previous operations for cancer – why is it ALWAYS cancer – and NOW you are thinking to tell me that you are dealing with it again. I guess that should have been the tip off, that you were finally telling me, that you wanted to talk. I should have guessed that there was more to it and that you were actually worried this time.

So rather than going to see you just in case, I stayed home, I stayed in Sydney. And you never woke up. That was the last time I talked to you. Sure I got to see you, but you were in a coma and while I am sure you knew I was there I couldn’t hear you. I couldn’t talk to you. I couldn’t tell you how I felt.

In truth you and I needed to change our relationship, but I think that point always comes for two men like us. We need to change and grow and find new ways to relate, but at the heart of it how I loved you didn’t change.

I am sorry I didn’t come and see you more, now that you are gone – really gone – there are so many things I wish I could share with you.  So many things I would like to say and so many stories I wish I could hear from you. But I cant, writing this is about as close as I can come.

So let me say it one time, clearly. Thank you for being who you were Alan and for helping me become who I am now; the good and the bad.

I love you and I miss you. You did become my friend and probably one of the best ones I ever had, but you were more than that. You are more than that. You are my father.