A Lifetime of Yesterdays

When I think of my mother and the stories she told me of her youth, back then, it felt like ancient history. They were things that happened some time before I was born, so not actually in my lifetime.

And when I thought of stories about the war years, the Great Depression, the many other things that happened in the last century, I couldn’t help seeing them all as “ancient history” because I hadn’t been born yet, even the landing on the moon!

Yet, now in my fifth decade, I think about my own past, my own childhood and memories. Every memory to me feels like it was only yesterday.

As a baby in a bouncinette, praying to God to help me remember this perfect day always.

As a child learning to ride a bike, cursing as I felt the training wheels were hindering me and deciding I wanted them off. My father threatened to belt me if I fell off my bike as soon as the training wheels were removed.

My family driving to a farm somewhere out in the country just so my parents could buy me fresh goats' milk by the gallon.

Spending months in hospital with my leg in traction because I broke it by simply falling under a glider swing, which I had always dubbed the ‘picnic basket shaped’ swing. Later, learning to use crutches to go up and down the hospital stairs.

Spending one Christmas sleeping in our car in Horeshoe caravan park somewhere in South Australia because nothing else was open and we arrived there around midnight. To me, this was my most favourite Christmas ever.

In my teen years, watching my father leaving, saying he’ll be home by Christmas, never to be seen again.

Special moments spent with my mum, eating at Maccas, seeing a movie, enjoying a music festival or just fishing on the Opera House pier.

Precious moments with each and every one of my past furkids; walking King, a corgi x poodle, along a bush track in the middle of a massive Surburban park that hid the city skyline well. Laughing as Cleo, a terrier x shih tzu, did spin outs in the sandpit of a child’s playground just so she could watch the cloud she created. Watching Opal, a Maltese x Shih Tzu who I adopted as a senior girl, flaking out in front of the fan on a hot summer’s night. Giving belly rubs to Milly, another Maltese x Shih Tzu who would do a praying symbol with her paws to constantly ask for more attention.

They all just happened yesterday.

Now in my 55th year and thinking about all my yesterdays, I recall all the stories that mum told me. Those stories that I felt were ancient history.

When mum was a child in the 1940s, in a small country town in Germany, watching her mother make a mattress with what appeared to be a giant cotton handmade quilt cover, then stuffing it full of hay. Another equally big handmade quilt cover would then be used to stuff goose feathers in for the blanket. Pillows, too, were made with either goose or duck feathers.

She often spoke of coming to Australia as a teenager with her half-brother and mother to escape the war years in Germany. Being made to live in a convent because her mother couldn’t care for her whilst searching for a place to live and finding some work for herself. I never did find out what my grandmother did for work, because mum would only talk of the abuse she had to deal with in the convent. The nuns promised to teach her, but instead, they treated her like a slave and beat her if she didn’t obey or work well enough for them.

Once or twice, she mentioned being gangraped by her boyfriend and a bunch of his mates in her late teens, causing her to become pregnant. When her boyfriend found out she was pregnant, he ran off. Later, that child would be taken from her by the Government because she was an unmarried female. It was common practice back in the 1960s.

She’d share her experiences of how she worked on the streets in her twenties because she didn’t know what else to do so she turned to what she did know. It would be occasionally how she’d make a living for the rest of her life.

All these memories of hers, be they tragic or fond, were all her yesterdays.

I Witnessed her escape from an abusive partner who she’d been stuck with for quarter of a century. He had controlled her mentally, emotionally, physically and psychologically in such a way that she didn’t see it as abuse. It wasn’t until he threatened to kill her furbaby, Maggie, a miniature foxie, if she ever left him that drove her to want to escape. She required a police escort on the day she left him as he went after her with a hammer.

That day, she came to live with me, and slowly learned how to become more independent. It took months to convince her that she didn’t need to ask permission anymore to cook, eat, go to the toilet, or even to go out. She didn’t have a curfew, she was free. I saw the mental damage the abuse created when the darker side of her came through, and she tested her new abuse skills on me. Skills that she learned from her now ex-partner. We would argue and I made it clear to her that I wasn’t going to tolerate that kind of behaviour either. I remember these moments as if they happened yesterday.

In her final years, she was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that ultimately took her life. She had thrown away all her tomorrows because she didn’t want to deal with the cancer, and so let it rage through her. Mum was Catholic, and she didn’t believe in suicide, so when she was diagnosed with cancer, it was the happiest I’d ever seen her. Her happiness took decades off her face and she looked like the young mother I remembered well as a child. I remember being so angry with her for not fighting the cancer, but letting it reign.

To the two of us, none of those were ancient history. They were our very painful yesterdays.

The next time your grandparents, or elderly parents want to reflect on their past. Stories you may have heard hundreds of times before. Listen to them. What they’ve experienced in their life, what they have lived through, it's not ancient history. To them:

It all just happened yesterday.

Written 22/2/22