AustLit
“Hello.”
“Hey Mum, it’s me. Something really weird just happened”
“Well, it better be good, Jerry Springer’s on.”
“Why do you watch that crap?”
“Go on, hurry up, what do you want?”
“I’m up here in Kings Park, you know that spot near that mother and child fountain?”
“Yeah, that’s a special place that spot there, very special for women eh…”
“I know right? Exactly! That’s why I just had to call…”
I place a protective hand on my huge, round belly. The little person inside is due to make an appearance in less than a week, a thought that is equal parts exciting and terrifying. I’m laying back on a picnic blanket with the remains of an epic KFC feast strewn around me.
Mum interrupts my tender moment with a spray.
“Ehya, look out! This man’s woman is wild! She’s coming out swinging!”
“Mum, turn that shit off and listen to me. Please. This is important.”
“Okay, don’t bust yourself. Tell me what happened?”
“You know how you always talk about how birds bring messages?”
“Yeah, they do…why?”
“So, I’m sitting on the blanket up here having a feed and I’m just about to take a bite out of this chicken drumstick and this kookaburra… no shit… a kookaburra swoops from out of nowhere and takes the chicken leg out of my mouth… OUT. OF. MY. MOUTH!!” Mum is silent.
I can tell she’s having to deeply consider this.
“Mum, what does it mean?” I ask with anticipation, whilst rubbing my bump and looking over this sacred women’s site.
My life has been filled with stories. From my mum, my Aunties and Uncles, my oldies. They would have us kids mesmerised with their stories about supernatural beings with magical powers, strange creatures of the bush - some good, some bad. Messages from birds. Messages from animals. Messages from the sky. Messages from places. Superstitions, lots of superstitions. Everything had a meaning in their stories.
I have a tingling feeling the story behind my close encounter with the kookaburra is going to be profound.
“Mmmmm….” Says Mum, her tone, rich with wisdom.
“You know what that means don’t you?’
“No, I don’t. What? What? Tell me!”
She pauses. Takes a deep breath.
“That bird was fucking hungry….. Now go on, I’m watching Springer!”
Oh, how I miss my mum.
It’s been five years since her family gathered around her bed in Royal Perth Hospital. Hearing that she had less than 24 hours to live, they’d come from far and wide to pay their final respects and say goodbye. Her brothers, her sisters, her nieces and nephews. And us. Me, my Dad, my sister and my two kids, her grandchildren. All of us weak with grief. Broken.
Mum had been sick with emphysema for a decade. The last couple of years she was in and out of hospital so often, it had become our new norm.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) - commonly known as smoker’s disease.
Mum had been a dedicated smoker since she was a teenager. Everyone smoked back then. They didn’t know how dangerous it was. They couldn’t have, could they? After all, Mum says in one of the children’s homes she was in, they forced her to work in an onsite commercial laundry and they paid her in cigarettes.
She always had a ciggie propped between her index and middle finger, either lit, or waiting to be lit and inhaled. Sometimes she would just light one and let the smoke tendrils waft up and around her without even taking one drag.
Our house was always thick with smoke. You could move any one of the dozens of photos on the loungeroom wall and see the original paintwork, which apparently, was not yellow.
By the time Mum was diagnosed with emphysema, she’d been smoking for so long, she didn’t see the point in giving up. It was only when her breathing got so laboured and she was forced to wear oxygen tubes up her nose that she finally gave up the evil weed. Too bloody hard to keep removing the tubes to light a nyumri.
It was around this time that she started refusing to leave the house. She hated being seen with a portable oxygen bottle with a long lead to her nostrils and a seat walking frame. She could only take a few steps before she’d have to sit down, lungs heaving while she gasped for breath. Like a fish out of water.
Mum loved a drink, she loved a smoke and she loved nothing more than to sit around with her sisters having a good charge up and a laugh. Every story, no matter what it was about, was funny. Her sense of humour was wicked. If you were on side, Mum was the best friend you could have. If you’d pissed her off, her acerbic tongue could reduce you to tears. Mum was ‘no filter’ before ‘no filter’ was even a thing.
But the lung disease changed her. Took her breath and her zest for life.
She found leaving the house so humiliating and traumatic she only forced herself to do it a few times, once for Aunty Monica’s funeral. Another time to see all her family at her sister Rhonda’s 60th birthday party. One final Easter lunch at my place.
After that, the only time she left the house was in an ambulance.
It became an almost weekly event. She would collapse, have a major nose bleed, or turn so grey, we would panic and call an ambulance.
Once there, they would plug her full of steroids, antibiotics and god knows what else and keep her there until she was strong enough to go home. And boy, would they be keen to get rid of her. She was not a kind and gracious patient. Even while struggling for breath and hooked up to machines she could boss everyone around and give them grief. We could never figure out how someone who was so short of breath, could bark orders so loud.
We would spend a lot of time apologising to nursing staff and then telling mum that even if she did think they were all a bunch of dickheads, she should probably not say that out loud to people who were entrusted with her care.
A few weeks after her 71st birthday, mum was sent to hospital yet again. It had become such a part of our lives. I remember saying to Dad ‘Really? Again? Let me know when she gets home, I’ll drop around.”
But this time, was the first time the doctors had told us Mum would not be leaving. She had end-stage COPD.
Dad rang to tell me. He did not know how to deliver this news gently. “Mum has only two days left. You better get here.”
The words crippled me. I fall to the floor, screaming.
My kids rush to me.
I tell them.
We all lie on the floor sobbing. I was cooking lamb shanks in the slow cooker that night. The smell had filled the house and we were just about to eat before we got the call. The meal was never served. That smell, to this day, triggers memories of that night.
We race to Royal Perth Hospital.
My mum, the battler. The woman who had never backed down from a fight in her life, ever….was Not coming home.
Here she was. Her tall, proud frame, now just skin and bone. Her once thick black hair, thin and grey. Her warm olive skin, cold and pale. News of Mum’s impending death spread quickly. Family came as soon as they could get there. Aunty Rhonda had to catch three buses and was in such a state when she arrived, we thought we’d lose her too. Aunty Leon, mum’s closest sister, sat with the Rosary beads mum had given her and wept. People came and went. Mum went in and out of consciousness.
In the middle of all this, Mum sat bolt upright in bed and looked past us all to a spot in the corner of the room. She just sat there staring and then cried out “Mum! Mum!”
All of us gasped. All of us felt it.
We knew the end was close. Her ancestors had come for her.
We formed a ring around her bed. Took turns holding her hand, kissing her cheeks and stroking her forehead.
Our hearts were bursting with sadness and love. The room heavy with sobs.
I can’t believe it’s now been five years since she roused from her morphine sleep, opened her eyes one last time, looked hard at us all and then uttered these final, immortal words…
“What the fuck are you all looking at?”
Born and raised on Whadjuk country in Perth, Michelle is a proud Yamatij. She is passionate about sharing the stories of her family and they have formed the basis of many of her creative projects, including short films and plays. Her desire to learn more about her Mother’s stolen generation experiences of removal as a child, led to her taking part in the 2019 series Every Family Has A Secret.
Michelle currently works at Community Arts Network (CAN) where she sees first-hand, the transformative power of arts and creativity.
An award winning former ABC journalist with more than thirty years’ experience, Michelle has employed those skills to help produce several publications and exhibitions sharing the untold stories of Noongar families.
Image credit:
"A lucky shot, just caught him in the frame.."
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_winged_kookaburra_(14796748785).jpg
By: Jim Bendon from Karratha, Australia