Category Archives: Reflections

Stories I Tell About My Mother

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A few years ago, I told my family that the gift-giving logic is flawed when it comes to the celebration of birthdays, Father’s Day and Mother’s Day.  It is our tradition that we receive gifts for our birthdays and we give gifts to our parents for Father’s/Mother’s Days.  Always the Devil’s Advocate, I said to my family that it seems strange to be receiving gifts on one’s birthday – as if we should be rewarded for having been born.  Wouldn’t it make more sense on our birthdays to be giving gifts to our parents? For without them, we would not be here.  And following this same logic, without us, our parents would not be parents, hence they should be giving us presents on Mother’s/Father’s Days!  OK, so this argument might be slightly flawed, too, if you are not the first-born (which I am not) because your parents are already parents even if you had not been born, so…

Putting aside my silliness (it runs in the family), Mother’s Day is a day we dedicate to show our love and appreciation for our mothers.  Of course, we should do this every single day and not just on one particular day, but it is still a good reminder to us of the sacrifices they have made for us and what they mean to us.  A mother is more than the woman who gave birth to us.  She has enormous responsibilities to raise and nurture us, and most importantly, to love us unconditionally.  For some, this person could be an aunt, a grandmother, a godmother, a step-mother, a foster-mother, an adoptive mother or a guardian.  And on this day, we recognise and show our appreciation for them all because they have made us who we are today.

My Mum with my Grandmother in the '50s

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Picture of Love, Togetherness and Strength

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On Friday 29th April, 2011, an estimated TV audience of 2 billion tuned in to the “Wedding of the Century” as Prince William of Wales married commoner Catherine Elizabeth Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.  They had met at university and had been together for 9 years (bar a short period of separation) and for almost as long, the world had been asking “when will they tie the knot?”  Once their engagement was announced and a wedding date set, then more questions followed: “who is she going to wear?” (making it sound as if she will be wearing a person), “who will be invited?”, “where will they have their honeymoon?”, etc.  And now that the ceremony is over, the next big question to the happy couple is “when will they have a baby?”.  And when that question is eventually answered, no doubt the next one will be “when will they have another one?”.  Ah, so many questions!

We are all fascinated to some extent by people who lead very public lives and, of course, the British royal family is one of the most famous and most public for many reasons.  Like all newlyweds, we wish the happy couple much joy and happiness.  But when all is said and done, the confetti has been cleared from the London streets and royal wedding memorabilia have been sold out, we return to our normal day-to-day lives, and our reality is a very different picture.

Although I was not among the invited guests at the royal wedding, I was fortunate to have been able to attend another wedding a few weeks ago of an old high school friend to her partner of some 15 yrs (or more?), and the father of her two beautiful daughters.  It was a much smaller and more intimate affair – something that I am sure Will and Kate wish they could have had, being surrounded by close friends and family.  There were no formal invitations sent – a simple message on Facebook announcing to friends the wedding date a mere 4 weeks ahead of the special occasion, followed by another one announcing the time and location of the ceremony and reception.  No formal RSVPs were received other than some messages posted on Facebook.  For Rodney and Mary, this was their perfect day.

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Lest We Forget – the Spirit of the ANZACs

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War Memorial Garden at suburban train station

I was only in primary school when I left Hong Kong to come to Australia.  I knew nothing of Australia’s history or the “ANZAC spirit” but to this day, I will never forget my first introduction to Australia’s involvement in WWI.  It was a rainy day in 1983 and our class was gathered in the school library.  There were a few beanbags scattered around the open space on the floor and some of us were quick enough to have been able to dive for one.  As we settled down, our teacher told us we were going to be watching an Australian film called “Gallipoli“.  Neither the title, nor the film’s now-famous director (Peter Weir) and stars (Mel Gibson and Mark Lee) meant anything to me, but as a TV and movie addict even way back then, I was happy to watch anything.  But by the end of the movie, I was sobbing, and as I looked around the room, so were my classmates, including the boys.  My appreciation for Australian history and its involvement in WWI would never be underestimated again.  In the 1980s, the Australian film and television industry was in love with the Aussie war stories and I devoured every film and mini-series that was made on the subject including “The ANZACs“, “The Lighthorsemen” and “A Fortunate Life” based on the autobiography of A.B. Facey.

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The Meaning of True Friendship

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“As we grow older we think we’re losing friends when in fact we are realising who our true ones are.”

I must start by apologising to whoever came up with this quote.  I cannot remember where I read it – possibly on one of my Blackberry apps for Quotes of the Day…no matter.  Whoever you are, I thank you.

I am a Gen-X’er who grew up in an era of typewriters (electric, at that!), Pac-Man, colour TVs and encyclopedias.  I used to write letters with pen and paper and had to visit the post office for stamps or aerograms to keep in touch with friends interstate and overseas.  Some people might say that in the pre-“www” age, it was harder to keep in touch with friends.  I don’t necessarily agree.  It is true that you had to make a bigger effort to keep in touch, but if the friendship is worthwhile, then shouldn’t the effort also be worth it?  And these days, with the ease and availability of email, Facebook, Twitter and mobile texting, what excuses do we have for not keeping in touch?

Last weekend, I attended the wedding of a friend I met in my last two years of high school (which was a very long time ago!).  We were friends even back then, but I would not say we were close.  I suppose you could say we both had the personalities that would get along with just about anyone.  After we finished high school, we had only seen each other once (for a mutual friend’s 21st birthday in the early 90s – just to give you context of the timeframe) and then not again until we re-discovered each other via Facebook in 2009.  And, as Fate would have it, she was living in Adelaide in South Australia and I was going there for a holiday just a few days after we realised she was no longer living in Sydney, where we had grown up.  Even better still, she lived only about 15 minutes from where I was staying with another friend.  So we arranged to meet for lunch.  That lunch date lasted nearly 4 hours.  After all, we had over a decade of catching up to do.  I now feel closer to her than I did in the two years that I went to school with her.

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Giving Is As Important As Giving Up

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For those of us who are Catholics, today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of the Catholic Lenten season that ends with Easter.  Most people associate Lent with the idea of giving up something, or making some sacrifice.  Typical “sacrifices” include giving up chocolates, ice-cream, new shoes, or some other self-indulgent thing.  But few of us remember that there are two sides to this coin, and that is to GIVE.  As part of the Lenten Program, Caritas (a Catholic charitable organisation active around the world) asks us to give through its Project Compassion program.  The season lasts six weeks and each week we are told a story of someone from a different part of the world: Nepal, Democratic Replublic of Congo, Bolivia, Samoa, Vietnam (a beautiful country which I visited only last November), and closer to home, Western Sydney.

I must admit, every year, as I have got older, I blindly put my money into either the Project Compassion collection box or in the weekly envelopes without giving too much thought to what I was doing.  But today, the homily our priest gave was all about giving and sharing.  He told a story of a little boy he met recently in South Africa who was looking through the garbage for food.  So he bought the boy some bread and the boy immediately looked for his friend to share his food with.  What would you have done if you had been that hungry little boy?  What would I have done?  Probably devoured it all in one mouthful?  Would you have shared?  What would you have done if you had been the passer-by seeing the little boy digging through trash for food?

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