The Bell Tree

Hey Mum,

I never told you this before, but… I did sleep with your twin sister’s daughter's husband, my cousin's husband. He was from Borneo and very handsome as you know. I took a bus across the Nullabor Plains with strangers when I was 18. It took 3.5 days. I saw Indigenous boys jumping into rusty tin rainwater tanks, precariously balancing on timber frames in the middle of nowhere on red earth.

When I arrived, one night she took me to a nightclub. My cousin was pregnant and apparently had a thing for big black men. She found 2 of them. We huddled in a comfy lounge section where she chatted with one of them then started snuggling. The other set his eyes on me. He was so large in stature that I looked like a pygmy next to him, all 5 ft 1” of me. I was just terrified. I felt like I was suddenly in America. I pondered how this was ok with her husband at home looking after their 3 year old.

She told me she was allowed and that she knew her husband was attracted to me so I could spend a night or 2 with him then she could have her way with the black man. I went home without her and she returned in the morning. I was wooed into bed with this older man, my cousin's husband. A naughty adventure. She went out again the following night so I spent another night with the Borneon born. I was used to silly 17 year old surfies. It was a nurturing experience. We had our flings. It was over. But the family was suspicious and he kept calling me at work, besotted.

Hey Mum,

I never told you this before, but…. I lost my virginity at 15 in the middle of a football field while drunk with the boy over the back paddock. I don’t remember feeling anything. I went out with him for nearly 2 years and he started to get possessive and jealous. He punched a few guys who looked at me sideways. He started pushing me around. He took me to the top of a mountain and made me get out of the car and left me there for hours. He pushed me with the bumper of his car one night in a car park when we were out at a concert and a man asked me to dance. He got meaner. I left him. He tried to kill himself in my bathroom when everyone was out. I got the police then he laughed and said it was a joke when they got there. His drunk father arrived at my door the next day asking me what I was doing to his son. That was it for me. I ran into the arms of a 28 year old after that to stop him stalking me.

Hey Mum,

I never told you this before, but… I’ve slept with 80 men.

Hey Mum,

I never told you this before, but… I loved you and despised you. I appreciated and resented you.

Hey Mum,

I never told you this before, but…I stole your nail polishes, perfumes and loose change in your drawers.

Hey Mum,

I never told you this before, but.. I miss you like hell. I found your 55 bells in your mothers antique display cabinet 3 years after you left this earth. I hung them all up in a beautiful tree on my new property. An old tree like a big umbrella spreading out about 10 feet in every direction. I waited for the wind to make them sing. I remember the first "ting". I’m sure it was a C sharp. One solitary bell finally rang when I lay in bed wondering why I hadn't heard any tings since I hung them. I felt it was an answer to my thoughts. You letting me know you were present in the spirit world.

The horses never roamed under that tree until an hour after the bells arrived. Then they frequented it. Two days after I hung the bells in my special tree, a huge branch broke off. The only branch with no bells tied in it. How astounding. More messages from above? When I think of you and feel called by your spirit I wander down the paddock and ring one bell at a time, flicking it with my fingers. I talk to you at the same time telling you what's going on in my life and sometimes letting you know I'm giving dad a hard time for the hard times he gave you. I giggle. It's like a verbal diary to you.

Hey Mum.

I never told you this before, but.. I wish I had loved you more when you were alive. Time ticks on but I will never forget you. Happy, generous, playful, lighthearted, giving, loving and very kind, I remember. I wish I had helped you carry your burdens. You lost 3 children at birth before I came along. I underestimated your pain. I was too selfishly grasping a life for myself to notice. Children can be naturally selfish. Where does parenting end and friendship begin? I love you through the bell tree now.

Ting ! Ting ! Hello Mum.

Hey Mom.

I never told you this before, but..I think you are beautiful, intelligent and sensitive but no one listened to you. They labelled you too emotional. Your sensitivity let you down because, like me, you were never taught to nurture and nourish it as a gift. A strength. Life comes and goes before you know it. We act like it's here forever and we have all the time in the world to make amends. We don't.

55 bells. 5+ 5 = 10. Add the digits and reduce to a single digit - 1. 1 the first number. New beginnings. I like that. You had a life, 93 is a pretty long time to live however I'm going to live to 120 so I won't see you for a while yet. I hope Figaro, Rosie, Jennifer, Michele and your Mumma, sisters, father and only brother John are frolicking with you.

I remember the time you sneezed and your dentures went flying across the wooden kitchen floor. Instead of being embarrassed you laughed like a playful little girl.

I remember when your stiletto heel got stuck in a crack in the pavement in the middle of town. You handled the embarrassment very well as you laughed to retrieve it. I felt so sorry for you. I adored you then, when I was 8.

I remember you flirting with the elevator man. "Going up? Going down?" He would say with the creepy sombre music playing endlessly. He was there to simply press a button. Hilarious.

I remember at the end when you lost your wits to bits. Stood in front of my son and daughter and asked them how long they had been married. When you told me I was 86 and you were 36. You weren't distressed about your clumsy comments, you were amused as we all were, laughing openly.

I remember the leopard print shiny bag and matching stilettos you wore to my school concert and your beehive hairstyle. I remember sitting in the hairdressers with you choking to death on the hairspray that filled the salon while I waited.

I remember my dentist, Dr Diabolical (something like that/ drilling my tongue as he eyed off my attractive mother. Men noticed her and she liked it.

I love her for everything she did and was now, not so easy to do when she was here sadly.

Hey Mum,

Did I ever tell you that I loved how you played tennis every Wednesday with a bunch of women of all ages under your tutelage and drank wine heartily afterwards telling crude stories about birth, death and life in between.

Hey Mum,

Did I ever tell you that I resented you not reading books or having deep conversations with me or asking me what I was going through internally about my world. I didn’t like you playing bingo and reading cheap gossip magazines. I didnt realise it didn't matter because you were the most loving, kind, caring, playful, giving person I ever met. I cry and I cry and I always will. I laugh and I laugh and I always will when I think of you, feel you in my heart and see you in my mind. It's true. We sometimes don't know what we’ve got until it's gone. My love for you is forever. And Ever. I LOVE YOU

Hey Mum,

I’ve never told you this before but…. I never wanted to be anything like you, but I am.