‘I’m grateful for all the times my parents were there for me’

Have you ever given any thought to how your parents were there for you? I found myself thinking about this recently.

My youngest sister was recently scheduled for major surgery and though our parents are no longer with us, she expressed to me that she hoped they would be looking after her. I’d assured her they were.

My mother passed away 11 years ago, my father 19 years. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t wish I could hear their voices one more time.

I was a sickly child. I’d had my tonsils operated on when I was a child and after the operation I’d started to choke on blood. I’ll never forget how my father flung me over his shoulders and ran us to the nearest doctor for help.

He would sit with me when I could not breathe any inhalers in the 1950s. I remember how he’d fill a kelly with Friars Balsam and make me inhale it.

When I was 12 I’d been kept after school. I had to walk home from school. My father saw me walking the long distance and there was a sense of relief that filled me when I saw his two-tone Holden pull up next to me. “Get in,” he said and I did. He drove us all the way back to school and made me wait in the foyer while he went and had a word with the principal. I don’t think any child was ever kept in after school again.

My father was 6’6″ and had served in the British Police Force in India. He was most upset when he arrived in Australia with his family and was told he could not join the Australian Police Force because he wore glasses. He went on to work at Rushcutters Bay with seaplanes before joining PMG, which is no known as Australia Post.

Dad walked me down the aisle in 1969 and my husband and I are still married 50 years later. I think he’d be proud to know that.

My mother had seven of us and lost a baby to smallpox. She never drove while we were young. In fact, it wasn’t until she was in her 40s that she got behind the wheel of a car. I remember there was one day of school when it was absolutely pouring with rain. I knew she couldn’t make the long walk to school with my baby sister that day and I would walk alone. When I saw her waiting for me dressed in my dad’s raincoat and with a smile on her face I felt tremendous love. She pulled back the coat and snuggled close and dry to her chest was my sister in her cuddle seat. That was all I needed. She winked at me and we walked home together in the rain.

I have such love for my parents and all the things they did for me growing up. I hope we meet again.

Can you relate to this story? Was your love for your parents as deep as this writer’s for hers?

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