The last birthday card

I was in a 12-Step program for 13 years and even though it turned out that I was just a dickhead, not an alcoholic, I learnt a lot of useful things in there. I learnt the value of stoicism and how to accept suffering and inconvenience. I learnt that happiness is not mandatory for having a successful life.  Most importantly, I learnt that having good parents is the golden ticket in the lottery of life.

After watching and listening to everyone in those meetings over many years, I began to develop a personal theory about parents and people. I believe that the world of grown-ups can be divided into those who are still children and those who have become proper adults. It became clear to me that an astonishing number of attendees at those meetings had been raised by people who had never grown up. I also found that many of the broken, sad, courageous, resilient and hopeful people I met in those rooms were still children themselves. I too, was very childish before I came into those meeting rooms, but I noticed over time, that is was easier for me to develop emotional maturity than some of my fellow members who had not been parented by adults.

What do I mean by being an “adult” grown-up? I don’t mean strength, power and dominance over others. Strength is important in adulthood, but the brittle rigidity that snaps when tested is not true strength, and nothing tests you like parenting young children. I think we’ve all felt the red mist rise up in us at the idiotic, frustrating and nonsensical things that toddlers do; and we’ve all been guilty of snapping, slapping or saying things to kids that we regret. What separates  the adult-sheep from the childish-goats though, is the ability to say sorry and acknowledge fault, even when you hold all the physical power.

I would say that both of my parents were adults in this way, but my Mum was a particularly good example of this type of adult. Like many Catholic women of her generation, Mum was “blessed” with an excessive number of children in a ludicrously short space of time. Naturally, she was in a rage a lot, and my very earliest memory is of myself running flat out down the back lane in Kalgoorlie to avoid a belting, with her in hot pursuit. (I used to climb the lemon tree a lot for the same reason, knowing that her dicky hip would prevent her from clambering up after me, as I cockily perched on a high branch). Another part of this memory is also crystal-clear in my mind. I can see myself sitting on Mum’s lap, the Bonaire blasting cool air, dripping water into the tray below as it struggled against the baking Goldfields heat.  Mum is hugging me tight, and saying sorry that she scared me, she was just chasing after Dad who had left his briefcase behind (again), and she knew that he needed it badly. I suppose experience had taught me that if Mum was moving that fast, I better run.

The point is, Mum was big enough to know it was her fault I was scared enough to bolt, and that she needed to make amends. She didn’t need to pretend I had over-reacted, because she was adult enough to take responsibility. As time went on, and all of us finally went to school, these situations almost never arose, and Mum moved into being the person that she really was: fun, funny and fun-loving. Mum had a light-hearted, child-like energy, which is also a sign of real adulthood, strangely enough. Seriousness is often mistaken for adulthood, but the ability to laugh at yourself and the world is the opposite of the thin-skinned, brittle energy of the “child” adult that we are seeing a bit too often at the moment.

It’s easy to sanctify and sanitise the dead, but this isn’t really necessary with my mum, Betty Brennan. Bet was so very human, and well aware of her own foibles. She was mostly famous for reading a lot and not keeping a very tidy house. One of our family tales told of an unexpected visit by our fanatically clean Aunt Mary and her daughter Patsy. Betty opened the door in a flustered state, only to watch them both step in a splodge of jam on the floor. “Stick around!” was Bet’s rejoinder to this mishap, before sitting them down for a cup of tea and a very long chat. I later heard that Aunt Mary had once said: “Let’s call in on Betty-the place will be a mess, but at least we’ll be welcome”.

It was this welcoming charm that drew people to Bet throughout her life. She made everyone feel special and interesting, and always had time for a yarn. This tendency to put others first stayed with her until her last days. I found it hard to watch her straining, on her death bed, to put others at ease, to smile and try and converse, even though she wasn’t making much sense at that point. I remember wondering if there is ever a time in a mother’s life when she gets to put herself first and tell everyone around her to fuck off, but I changed my thoughts about this later. Betty was a very protective mother, as all true adult parents are, and maintaining her party manners in extremis was a way to preserve some dignity; but was also the last act of parental service she was able to do. “I’m fine! Everything’s fine! Don’t worry about me!” Just like the last birthday card she wrote to me, in the spidery, wavering script of the nearly-blind, she urged me to “dance up a storm” at my 60^th ; even then, her only thoughts were for the happiness of her child.  

Now more than a year has passed since she left us, and I am able to reflect more in gratitude than grief on the gifts she left us all. Her example of adult stoicism, when, after a day of dealing with six kids and all the rest, she still had time to come in and stroke our hair if we had trouble getting to sleep. The feel of her nice scratchy nails, and water-roughened skin on hands that always smelled like chopped onions- a result of one of the  “look busy” tricks she’d learnt from some sister-in arms: “if you start frying onions as soon as your husband gets home, he’ll think you’ve been working all day”.

Her lovely singing voice, and delight in all music. She whistled a lot and taught us 3-part harmonies while we did the dishes. I sing the same songs to my grand-daughter, and I know my ability to care for her, even when I am tired is because I was well-mothered.

I think the most wonderful legacy she lefts us though, was her insatiable thirst for learning and scholarship. She had eclectic interests, including astronomy, spiritualism, poetry, geography, religion, ancient history and according to her 1970 diary, read War and Peace in 8 days! That probably accounts for the jam on the floor. She read the entire bible from Genesis to Revelations in her 80’s, and decided that she couldn’t really go along with it after all and stopped going to church.

There’s not one of us “kids” , to this day, who doesn’t have a study project on the go, either formal or independent, and life probably won’t be long enough for us to cram in all the things we still want to learn.

Thanks Bet you bloody legend xxx