Mothers Day

It’s Mothers day 2006. I woke early and as one is want to do in the fog of waking from sleep, I reflected on the Mothers linked to my family.

As a Mum, I always think of the birth of my children on Mothers Day… but in our family it tends to be a little different.

I think of my Mum, of course, Shirley Smedley, who turned 80 late last year. Mum had me when she was just 21. I weighed 3 lb and had to be wrapped in cotton wool encased in brown paper because I was delicate…. Things have sure changed!!!!

She’s probably one of the most talented women I know. We just accepted that she could whip up a garment in a few hours when we were teenagers or at 80 do the finest cross stitch that she designed herself on the computer….

So that brings me to my nephew and his wife Annette, who is a new Mum of Triplets… the smallest, was born just 680 grams….. Bless his little heart. He’s struggling a little to catch up to his 1 lb brother and sister.

Keith’s Mum, Gladys…. just 4ft 6” tall. She was a little challenged in the weight department. She passed away several years ago, but I can still see her with her bright red hair. She loved her Osti dresses held encased at the waist by an ever present pinny… unfortunately this allowed her petticoat to hang an inch below her dress and never covered the long undies she wore…. You know the bright pink ones, silky in summer and fleece in winter….

Gladys won an OBE for service to the community, she was a real character.

William Chaisurin, the Mum of my eldest Daughter Susie…. Yes she was called William. Her Mother was a maid to a British couple and liked the name… well she didn’t care if it was a boys or girls name….

William had 10 children and lived in a slum in Bangkok. She was a quilter. The art taught to her by my English friend Joy Bucknall who lived at the end of the Soi (street). William and her friends made hexagon cushions and bedcovers from left over Thai silk gleaned from the rubbish bins of the Jim Thompson silk factory.

Susie has only visited her family once since she arrived in Australia as a 10 year old. But she still has contact with them. William now lives in a nice apartment assisted by her children.

Susie, now a Mum of two teenagers reflects the values of her childhood as Keith’s and my daughter.

Joshua’s Mum handed him to us when he was 3 weeks old and weighed just 3 lb. She was an unwed mother and suffered from the shame of being so. She was shunned by her immediate family and lived on her Grandmothers veranda for the term of her pregnancy.

I would love to find her now and thank her for her wonderful gift.

Darrin and Michael’s Mum was unable to take care of them from birth… so they lived with their paternal Grandmother, a gentle, quietly spoken elderly aboriginal woman, who was no match for two energetic boys….She wanted the best for the boys but received little assistance until they were placed in our family. They certainly made our life interesting.

Sylvie. The Mother of three of our children, Liseby, Lori and Benjamin. Sylvie lived in Mauritius, a country known for its seclusion and beauty. Sylvie loved her children in her own way. She now lives in France and had another child well after she was 40. Sylvie visited us once…. It was an interesting experience and this Mum brave at first felt quite insecure until she left to return for Mauritius.

Callie’s Mum must have been exquisite…her beauty reflected in the 6lb bundle I found in terrible conditions in an orphanage in Sri Lanka. Callie had been placed on a railway line at birth…. One can only imagine her fate if she had been placed there at the wrong time….rescued by an unknown angel, she ended up the Kandy Hospital and was charged as an abandoned child….

Now Callie is a Mum herself to our precious Kodi. How lucky we are to be part of their lives.

Sammy’s Mum was just 13…..his father was actually his Mothers’ Father too….!! Sammy was born with severe medical problems and lived in an orphanage in Nyakakanda Sri Lanka…. He came to live with us at 3 but died when he was just five years old.

I often wonder where she is now…. Did she ever marry? I have my doubts….!!

Jinda’s Mother left him at the hospital door and he was bought up in an orphanage in Thailand. We have no papers… and in fact he actually had no name, so there is no way to trace his Mum…. Jinda was born with a congenital condition and is deaf….. his Mum must have found it just too difficult to cope.

Jinda (which means sapphire) is our youngest child now 21 years old and a bit of a gem.

On Mothers Day, I think of Bo, the little girl with downs syndrome who lived with us for 3 years, of Phat a refugee from Vietnam who learnt to be Australian over the years he spent with our rowdy brood….His Mother finally arrived in Australia from a camp in Cambodia. Lien from Taiwan and the Mums of the many foster children who had difficulty in lives at some time.

What did I do on Mothers Day….? Well here I am sitting in the Qantas Club sipping on Baileys on ice and waiting for my plane after 6 days away teaching….

The ladies were amazing, their projects just super and hopefully I will be able to put them up on the blog in a day or so for you all to share……I’ve had the phone on all week waiting for the call to say that my girl Rachael is about to be a Mum…. But it didn’t happen today…. Still there are a few hours left and it’s all very exciting.

Happy Mothers Day.