ASPECTS OF LIFE...AND...OF LOVE...

Elma, my mother, circa 1938...in Rockhampton.....modelling a two-piece bathing costume in a parade for the company which was her employer

Two views of Slade Point, via Mackay

Sunshine Beach...looking southward...

Love has many faces.  Love can be joyous, and then as quickly it can become heartbreakingly painful...

Sometimes love is heartless and controlling.  

Love can make one want to soar to the moon and stars beyond.  Love can bring out sides in us we didn’t know we had. Love is many-faceted.

First love can be both beautiful and tortuous.  First love can break a lover’s heart momentarily, or, for some, cause endless despair. 

For the majority, the hurt caused by the loss of a first love remains until the next candidate steps within their circle or aura, breaking down the flimsy, fragile barriers erected.  

Some will ask you to walk beside them throughout life, while others will only want you for a short stroll. Throughout my life, I took quite a few short strolls. We all have the right to be wrong now and then. Sometimes I was more wrong than I was right, but no harm was ever done, or caused; and much fun was had, and enjoyed!

Although, I never had children of my own, the most precious and lasting love is that for one’s child/children, I believe.

It was a week-night, back in 1971, or thereabouts. I was spending the night at my then boss’s home in the Brisbane suburb of Kenmore.  John was away in Sydney at the time, on business.  His wife, Shirley and I were good friends (we still are.  John, sadly, passed away in 1995).  Shirley and I decided to have a “girls’ night in...not out”, along with their two little boys, Gavin and Andrew.

Andrew, their younger son was around two and half years old at the time.  Gavin was two years older than Andrew.  Andrew no longer slept in a cot, having proudly progressed to a bed. The night of my stay-over he was to return to sleeping in his cot, which had remained in his bedroom, while I stole his bed for the night.

Sitting on the sofa in the family room, enjoying a pre-dinner Scotch, Shirley and I chatted while she was in the kitchen preparing dinner (both rooms flowed into one, without a separating wall).  The two little boys had had their dinner earlier, and were playing on the floor in front of me.

Shirley, in her usual, calm, modulated way told Andrew it was time for him to go to bed. Without any ado, Andrew heeded his mother’s gentle words.  The very next minute, I felt tugging on my left arm.

“ ‘ee…’ee! Come on, ‘ee!”  A little voice pleaded.   (My name is rarely, if ever capable of being shortened...but on that particular evening, it was)!

Andrew continued pulling at my sleeve.  His still babyish face upturned, his eyes wide, innocently, and solemnly begging me. “Come on, ‘ee…’ee!”

Finally, I realised what he wanted.

I raised my eyebrows at Shirley...winked, and smiled, “I guess I’ll see you later, Shirley...an early night for me.  It looks like I’m off to bed, too!”

Mop-topped Andrew decided if he had to go to bed, so did I, seeing I was sharing his room, and sleeping in his bed!

Placing my glass on the coffee table in front of me, I followed Andrew into his bedroom.

Without a fuss, eagerly, he climbed into his cot.  After tucking him in, I climbed into his bed.  It was 6.45pm.

Not wanting to disturb the equilibrium, I feigned sleep until I was certain he’d fallen into slumber.

Fearing if I stood up, I would wake him, like a snake, I slithered off the bed, and then crept along the floor on my stomach until I reached the hallway.  Once there, silently, I stood up, and re-entered the family room.

Shirley and I were both laughing as she handed me a refilled glass of Scotch.

The innocence of a child is a wondrous thing.  How could one not love them?

 

When my mother passed away...22^nd August, 1974... I was heartbroken.   

I’d flown up to Slade Point, where my mother and my grandmother were living, the moment Nana phoned to tell me Mum had been whisked off to the Mackay Base Hospital.  Slade Point is a beach-side suburb of Mackay.

I went through a difficult time, personally, but I kept my pain and sorrow to myself, only succumbing to my tears and grief when I was alone.  No one else could understand my innermost feelings.  My grief was my own. I had to work through it myself, my way.   

My mother passed away two days after my arrival.  Elma Flora turned 54 years of age a few months earlier... on 17^th February, 1974.

Once I'd returned to Brisbane (I was living in a townhouse in Toowong at the time)...back to my daily life and routine...I felt myself falling further and further into a bottomless black pit.  I didn’t know how to stop my descent, or how to climb back up out of the dark depths. On the outside, when in front of those in the outside world, I put on a brave face, hiding my grief, my sorrow.   Inside, I was being torn apart.

That is until one Saturday afternoon a couple of months after my mother died.

Around 1 pm, I decided to have a nap. 

In a very vivid dream, which I remember verbatim to this day, my mother came to me.  

She stood at the end of my bed as clear as if she was, in fact, standing there in reality.

Smiling at me, my mother said, “I’m okay, love. I’m fine.”

Upon waking, I continued to lie on my bed, digesting what I had just “seen”.

The vision of my mother, in my dream, had been crystal clear. I questioned whether it had been a dream, or had she really “come” to me.  It mattered not either way.

The “dream” calmed me.  I found inner peace.  From that moment forth, I began to look at life more clearly.  Everything began to fall into place. I found my way back up out of the deep hollow into which I’d been falling with the help of the dream, or vision.   

The dream was not a subject of discussion.  At the time, I told no one about it, believing it was no one else’s business.

The year rapidly drew to a close.  Christmas was around the corner. Randall (my now late ex-husband) was due back in Brisbane from New York in November, 1974.

(Previously, I’ve written often about Randall.   Regular readers of my blog would be fairly aware of our story.   In a nutshell...Randall and I first met in 1963.  He went overseas in 1965; and, upon his return to Australia in November, 1974, we picked up where we’d left off...)

My head was spinning. in my heart, and in my mind, I knew I still loved Randall, even though his life, and mine, had taken many different paths.  We’d both crossed numerous bridges during the nine years he’d been living overseas.  I was not fooling myself that there weren’t still more to come...both good and bad.

I didn’t meet Randall at the airport the day he flew into Brisbane, instead I remained at work.  His mother invited me to dinner at their home in Geebung, a north-side suburb of Brisbane that evening.

The day dragged for me. My heart pounded in anticipation throughout the day, and gathered in momentum as the afternoon progressed.

Randall had telephoned me from the States a couple of weeks before his departure with instructions to book a holiday rental for the both of us at Noosa or its surrounding area.

At the time, I didn’t have a car.  My boss, John, kindly drove me up to Noosa where I visited various real estate agents in search of suitable accommodation.

I found a perfect little cottage high on densely-vegetated secondary sand dune at Sunshine Beach, around the corner from Noosa Heads...on the southern side of the Noosa National Park.    

The property was called “Anna Capri”.  It stole my heart at first glance.

Perched high on the dune, stairs, fringed by shrubs and trees, led from the one-car, street-level garage up to the house.  Painted white, “Anna Capri” had views from Sunshine Beach, south to Coolum and beyond. The point at Point Cartwright, south of Mooloolaba could be seen in the far distance.

It wasn’t a fancy, flash new house, having been built probably back in the 1940s or thereabouts, but it was cosy, clean and bright. The location, too, was just perfect.   

I fell in love with “Anna Capri” the moment I set eyes upon “her”. I knew the cottage would be an ideal place for Randall and me to re-discover each other; for us to learn if, perhaps, we had a future together.

Paying the agent a rental deposit, I booked “Anna Capri” for a week, to commence the Saturday after Randall’s planned return on a Thursday. The count-down to his arrival had begun in earnest.

Arriving at Randall’s parent’s home in Geebung late on the Thursday afternoon of his arrival back to Australia in November, I was filled with mixed emotions.

 So many “what-ifs” did battle with each other in my mind.