It’s a story of courage, resilience, and a woman called Grace
Trigger Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual assault and may not be suitable for all readers. Fearless community, please read with care.
The 26th day of January has for as long as I can remember, been a day of sun, beer, and lamb on the barbecue. When I was growing up we celebrated Australia Day by heading to the beach with our Australian flag towels. It was a day where we enjoyed the summer with our family and friends, eating, drinking, and being merry.
All the while, our First Nations People, the Aborigines and Torrens Strait Islanders, grieved, largely silently. The day that recognizes the day that the First Fleet raised the Union Jack at Sydney Cove, birthing British settlement of this huge, dry, hot country reminds them of the brutal way in which our country’s original inhabitants, their ancestors, were treated. …
So why do we react so differently when women do the same?
As a lawyer who has many years’ experience drafting Wills, I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve asked a couple about their family situation. They will tell me about their children. Often the family is blended, some children are theirs, others his or hers.
Occasionally I will see an odd look in the man’s eyes and press a bit further. Any other children? That’s when he will mention a child that he hasn’t seen for twenty or more years. A child whose name he knows, but that is all.
If he wanted to find his adult child, he wouldn’t have a clue where to start looking. …
How I lost my adult son, and found a way back to him.
It’s a cool and drizzly spring afternoon here in Australia. I’m sipping a tea while my favorite scented candle burns away next to me. My husband is pottering around doing a bit of housework, and I am writing.
I could never have dreamed I’d be so free.
With the benefit of hindsight I now know that there were early red flags of serious problems in my first marriage. Of course I could not see them at the time. I was the proverbial frog in the pot, the abuse progressing so gradually that I could not pinpoint what was wrong. …
In the unlikely event you ever have to deal with leftover lobster, I have a solution to this most improbable quandary.
I’ve been on a short hiatus from writing as I reflect on what has been a challenging yet rewarding year, in the obvious ways, and the deeply personal.
But I miss writing, and love cooking, hence this spontaneous production.
My husband and I have spent the last ten days taking advantage of a relaxation of restrictions in Australia that allows for interstate travel. We have spent our summer holidays exploring the island state of Tasmania.
And I can’t think of a better place to reflect on peaks and troughs of 2020 than in the picturesque town of Stanley, in North-Western Tassie, only an hour’s drive from what is known as The Edge of the World. …
You are personally responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, and there is no way around that.
It’s a warm Sunday morning in Australia. People are enjoying leisurely brunches in cafes, gathering in parks, worshiping in Church. Some are wearing face masks, most are not. Hand sanitizer has become a fixture in most shops and cafes, as has the QR code displayed in the foyer of pubs and restaurants.
We are all good with hand hygiene and contact tracing. After all it’s given us our life back. …
The consequences of my decision to go no contact, when I share a disabled child with my abuser.
I’ve fought some battles in my life. I’ve battled the intense, relentless confusion of the prison that is long-term domestic abuse. I’ve endured the endless heartbreaking roller coaster that is special needs parenting.
But nothing was quite like the battle against guilt that I have fought since making the agonizing decision, a little over a year ago, to cut contact with my ex-husband. The man who almost put me in my grave.
After 24 years together, and a further five since separation, I finally came to understand that the abuse was never going to end. My ex-husband felt deeply entitled to control my life and that did not change when I left him. …
Tomorrow begins a new chapter in our lives.
If you have been following me for any length of time you will know that I have one child, a beautiful, unique son who I refer to as ‘Jack’.
Jack is severely intellectually disabled. He is also stunningly handsome.
You also know that I suffered abuse for many years at the hands of my first husband and that I made the agonizing decision, a little over a year ago, to cut contact knowing that the consequence could be that he would make it impossible for Jack and I to spend time together.
While the world has been adjusting to unprecedented challenges, I’ve been fighting a battle of my own. The fight for a relationship with my son that is entirely separate from his father. …
Trump, evangelicals and forgetting Jesus.
It’s a little over a week until the land of the free heads to the polls to decide who will lead the United States for the next four years. The world is looking on in bewilderment.
As an Australian woman with no religious upbringing who came to know Jesus in her forties I have been struggling with the disturbing reality that it was people who profess to love Jesus, the same Jesus that literally saved my life and restored my hope, that put this narcissistic, racist, bigoted man in the White House four years ago.
And those same people may just keep him there. Worse, they profess to do in the name of God, and in the name of freedom. …
Why I refuse to celebrate my fatness.
A few months ago the internet was full of stories about Adele’s amazing weight loss. The general theme was that it was at best presumptuous, and at worst, bigoted fat-shaming, to celebrate her victory over the challenge of living with excess weight.
No doubt, in the eyes of some, I’ve just indulged in the same prejudice by writing the previous paragraph.
The various articles suggested that perhaps Adele was sick, or suffering emotionally as a result of her divorce, and that her weight loss could be a symptom of a serious health issue. …
