“I’m 4th generation Irish so that Catholic aspect and a lot of superstitions I still carry with me today, which is part of being a Celebrant. I love a bit of ritual. The superstitions were threaded through our lives, like putting your cutlery together. My father was very big on table manners. I do put elbows on the table now (laughs) but you weren’t allowed to speak at the table. I actually said at my father’s funeral…’We might have been a wild bunch but we all had impeccable manners’ which came from him. At the same time if you crossed your knife and fork you would upset the Virgin Mary because it would remind her of Jesus on the cross.
My father took all the doors off except the front and back door and the bathroom door which didn’t have a lock. There was violence in the home and someone can’t be locked out if there’s no lock. It also meant anyone could come into your space at any time, so again it placed the more vulnerable at risk. To be fair to my father who has passed, I loved him and do love him dearly and I was his favourite but he came back from the war as an alcoholic. He did stop drinking when I was young and he would go overseas for 6 months sometimes with work and leave all these kids. Mum couldn’t manage that. She had her favourites and I was not one of them. I have more compassion around them now as the pain is not there. I was angry for a long time but I made peace with my mother 20 years ago. They’ve both gone now. One of my brothers and my dearest sister have passed too.
Some years before that I started doing funeral work. I do a lovely funeral I might add which is also about capturing people’s stories. That’s what I can do quite well, similar to this. I think if we can’t do it while people are alive, it’s important to do it at the time of their passing. Everybody has extraordinary lives and we often don’t know those aspects.
I’ve been doing funerals for 16 years and I do some Doula work but only with family and friends. One of my dear friends, Kazza Bird, we spent a lot of time together and certainly the days leading into her final hours but the conversation was ….What are your regrets? What are ok about leaving behind? what’s unfinished? Conversations around your spiritual journey. It’s about being in that place without judgement and without pre-conceived ideas. The doula work I do for people I love and the funeral work I do for anyone. I write eulogies. I got into Marriage Celebrant work about 12 years ago so there’s my love of ritual and my love of celebration and ceremony. When it’s done well, we are hearing a love story and we all love a love story.
Parallel to that has been working in Suicide Bereavement so working with families and individuals following a suicide. I’ve been doing this work for 8 1/2 years and I’ll be wrapping up this month. I will still be doing private work around grief and loss. My personal experience with grief and loss has been quite extensive over the last 8 years so I feel I have a lot of my own understanding I can bring into that space. There’s no cure or prescription for grief. My sister Pat died from cancer and I just hate the fact she is not here. She was my eldest sister and she was my back up plan. We were going to get old together. When Pat died I experienced life like I was living behind glass. I could see people, see their mouths moving. I had no sense of taste or smell. It was just a flat line. It wasn’t depression, I could still keep working but it was this other space I felt I existed in. That sensation finally shifted but it provided me with a deeper understanding about that experience and that nobody can take you through it any faster. It’s about how do we care for ourselves and keep safe in that space and to find the little glimmers. I still miss her terribly.
My last partner Kim and I were together for 14 years which was a personal best for both of us. We met up here at a party. I’d been to one party and walked in with a bunch of rowdy women and somehow made an impression. We’ve been separated for a couple of years but we still love each other very much. It was a great relationship and still is a great relationship but we de-coupled. That was the right move for both of us. I adore the woman and I thank her for that time to learn about healthy relationships.
There’s travel through those years. I went with my 8 year old son to the UK. Pre Covid I went to Italy with my friend Judy Arpana for a Pilgrimage. My sister and I left France and went to Ireland. Dad had died the year before, we arrived in Dublin to go to our hotel. As we were walking along I said..Here comes John, which was our brother who’d died. It was the absolute image of him. Walking down another street,…Oh here comes Dad. I likened that to Aboriginal people who can look at someone and say I know who your mob is or you’re so and so’s daughter. That was my sensation in Ireland. It felt like home. I burst into tears when I saw the land mass from the plane window. I put that down to inter-generational connections. That was like a coming home. We went into every church and lit candles for my Dad. I don’t have garden gnomes I have Virgin Mary’s. I sent home about 6 litres of holy water (laughs). It was just ridiculous. I loved New Zealand and Vietnam too so travel has been dotted throughout.
I’ve worked at Tafe, I’ve done a lot of training which I do quite well, my grief work and looking out for people. I moved to the Northern Rivers 26 years ago from Glebe where I worked and studied, was on school boards and my dad had built me a little Permaculture garden on cement. I just looked up one day and thought I want to see the stars, there must be more to life. I was Sydney born and bred and never thought I’d leave it but I did and I love it here.
I don’t know if it’s an age thing or just that getting of wisdom but I like not feeling weighed down with that backstory. It’s there and it’s influenced who I am and I’ll be reverent as I possibly can about Nuns. I went to therapy about all of that for a few years to try and shift it. Now we are all for the positive stuff with children which is how it should be. Being told your useless doesn’t help. Right now I’m loving that I’m stopping full time work. I started working just shy of 16.
Just over a year ago I had a sore wrist and a couple of months later I could hardly walk. They thought it was Polymyalgia. As a kid I had Rheumatic Fever so I would often be in pain which I was told as a kid that I was bunging it on. About 16 years ago I got Ross River which affected my joints badly. So periodically every single joint plus nerve pain was unbearable. The last fortnight I’ve been feeling so much better. I’ll keep doing, I’m a busy woman and I want to find out what my body is like without stress and my job is big stress. Holding space for people in grief is as much the same as physically holding someone for a period of time. I’ll still do this work in a lesser capacity. I want to be able to provide that to my family and friends.
I want to write more. I’ve always kept dream journals. My first dream was very prophetic so I have over 30 years of dream journals. What are my kids gonna do with those when I die? Originally I said just put them in my coffin with me and burn them but there’s so many, they’ll need their own coffin. My earliest memory is me with a pencil in my hand. My Dad as a treat took me to Dymocks in George St to buy a pencil. When I go to Sydney now I still go to Dymocks to relive those moments. It doesn’t smell or look the same but I still do it as homage to my Dad.
I suppose I would say to you…What is my regret?… It’s that all the children of my siblings don’t know each other because we didn’t stay connected. That wasn’t part of our upbringing and we were fragmented as a family. We have Aboriginal family, Mauritian, Chinese and when we’ve got together in recent years, it’s been for a funeral or perhaps a wedding. I was pretty wild, going from hippie life for years to the gay and lesbian alternative city life. I mean, who wanted the Leso Aunty coming to the wedding? God knows what colour her hair is gonna be.”