Not Speaking

• January
• 20

6:00 am Mental Illness, Prayer, Survivors of Abuse, The Friday Files

The Friday Files continue …

Although Mum could be vivacious and bubbly when she chose to be, if you ever got on her wrong side then she would hold a grudge – for life.

For as long as I can remember, we were never on speaking terms with our neighbours.  This seemed unfair to me, especially seeing as a couple of them had children my age. But I was never allowed to talk with them over the fence, let alone play with them.

The one exception was Helen from across the road, my mother’s best friend. One of my earliest childhood memories is of the first moon landing in July 1969. Helen and Mum were glued to the TV set, and I remember being distinctly annoyed that Playschool was not on. I was all of 2 and a half!

Helen had two boys roughly the same ages as my sister and I, and we often played together. Our mothers must have still been friends when I was in Grade 3, because I was unable to attend one of the boy’s birthday parties as I had come down with the mumps. Mum must have felt sorry for me because she presented me with my first set of knucklebone jacks and taught me how to play. (Yes, I do have some happy memories of my Mum but unfortunately they are few and far between).

The friendship turned sour not long afterwards and Mum and Helen never spoke again.

“Not speaking” was quite common in my childhood.  Mum made friends easily, and like a school girl she would quickly have a new favourite. They would became “flavour of the month”, but sooner or later they all fell out of favour - and it was never pretty.

Celia was another single mother that my Mother met when I was about 18 and at teacher’s college. At the time my Mum was also studying, completing her Senior Certificate. Celia had a daughter, Charlotte, who was about eight. Celia mollycoddled Charlotte, her only child, and was extremely overprotective, and for some reason Mum seemed to think this style of parenting was worth copying. Needless to say my sisters and I found it extremely annoying, especially as we were quite a lot older than Charlotte! But again, within a year or two, Celia and Charlotte disappeared from our lives (much to our relief !).

There was even a stage where Mum refused to speak to her own parents for a couple of years. My parents were still together, so it must have been before I was ten years old. One day we came home from an outing to find a note from my grandmother and some pawpaws from her garden, waiting by the door. The olive branch worked and my grandparents were back in our lives.

Mum had a love/hate relationship with her mother. Although she would often complain about her, and grumble of how her brother was always given preferential treatment ever since they were small, they would talk on the phone nearly every day, and Mum would visit her every weekend when I was in my teens. Looking back on it now I’m nearly certain my grandmother also suffered from bipolar disorder; I know that she suffered more than one nervous breakdown and was hospitalized at least twice during my mother’s teenage years.

This photo was taken when I was 16. My mother used to laugh and joke about it and call it my “dying swan” look. Can you see the misery in my eyes, the fear and despair in my body language? How puffy my eyes are from weeping?

Mum had a friend in Melbourne, an elderly Salvation Army lady called Gladys. When Gladys came to Queensland on holidays, she stayed with us for several days. During this time Mum had one of her outbursts (I have no idea why). In this photo you might be able to see the wound beneath my eye, from the ring she was wearing when she backhanded me across the face. 

I could tell that Gladys felt sorry for me, as she was extra nice after that. She took this photo and sent it to me once she returned home. Not surprisingly, that was the end of her friendship with my Mum. Gladys tried to help, and I’m sure she prayed for us. I’m grateful for that.