by Ann Fogarty
By March 1986, Terry and I had separated, three years after Ash Wednesday. The once unthinkable had happened. We explained simply to each of the girls that we just couldn’t live in the same house any more, at pains to impress on them that we still loved them and that Terry would be seeing them every weekend. I’ll never forget the look of anguish that crossed Sarah’s face as we told her. She was in her bedroom sitting on her bed reading when I asked if we could speak to her. She said very little but her face and her eyes expressed her distress. Rachel was seven at the time and I’m sure it was hard for her, too, but her reaction was more difficult to read. Terry initially moved out into a rented unit in Cranbourne which was close enough for easy access to the children.
After the marriage ended, I was plagued with guilt thinking that I’d failed at something that had mattered so much to me. Never mind that we’d been told how common it was for marriages to fail after such trauma, I should have been able to keep our family together. I tortured myself endlessly with, ‘Maybe if I’d… If only I’d… If I hadn’t… And how could I live with being single? Divorce was something that other people did, wasn’t it?’
I dared not think too much about what lay beyond or of a life alone; nevertheless, it felt as if there was no end to the pain and struggle. For the first time ever, I wondered how my life would have turned out if I hadn’t met Terry in London and come to Australia. I’d kept in touch with two girlfriends, Anne and Joyce, from Nelson Grammar days, both of them married with children and still living in areas where they’d grown up. I imagined myself there, able-bodied, as I would have been. I pictured myself shopping in towns still quintessentially English, with their core of stone buildings and cobbled lanes. I thought of the everlasting deep green of the trees. I imagined having the four children I once wanted with a loving husband by my side.
The fantasy was short-lived. I realised that I was always going to be too adventurous for a life in village England, and would a more predictable life have been a happy one, anyhow? Anne, like me, had separated from her husband. I didn’t regret being here—despite all that had happened. I love Australia, I thought. And I would never have had Sarah and Rachel…
My main concern at this stage was to keep the girls with me in the house in Berwick when we separated to give them stability and continuity. I was able to do this, although I had to mask my constant battle against fatigue now that I didn’t have a partner to share the burden. A simple activity like preparing dinner was difficult because of the exhaustion. I loved being a mother and gave the girls a good deal of attention, but always felt inadequate, wondering if I was listening to them enough, being patient enough and so forth. True to form, I never communicated to anyone the struggle involved in running the household by myself; I was afraid of someone questioning my capability as a mother to take care of the girls. That truly would have been the last straw. Consequently, most days I’d hope I could just keep going and scrape through to bedtime.
As the weeks passed it became more and more difficult to continue wearing a bright face and assure everyone that I was managing, while also giving the girls what they needed from me. It was a strain too, not only to handle but also conceal the grief I was feeling at the loss of my marriage. I told myself that I could never marry again nor love the way I’d loved Terry. But no matter how much I tried to block out the grief and anguish, it kept seeping back, overtaking every part of my being. I could think of nothing to look forward to. The latest facial surgery that I’d so anticipated was a bitter let down. It was not nearly as successful at restoring my face to some semblance of its previous form as I had hoped. I stolidly continued about the business of being a mother and friend, hiding the dull ache inside until I could shrink into myself, away from the world, each evening. As I did, the same refrain kept recurring: how can I keep going?
I started contemplating the liberation of not having to struggle any more, of letting go of life and stopping the pain. At first I was appalled with myself; I’d always felt judgemental about people taking their own lives, especially if they had children. I thought of the devastating effect it would have on the girls and on the many other people close to me. But then the emotional pain became so deep and so entrenched that even these obstacles could be set aside in my mind. I had cried out for death in the firestorm and begged to be allowed to die at the height of my pain in hospital, but this was worse. I understood with a profound clarity and empathy how others might feel when they attempted to take their own lives; the all-encompassing feeling that to die was less painful than to live with problems and despair that seemed to have no end.
I started to plan how to end my own life.
The September holidays were close and the girls were both due to go away to camp for a week. If I were to commit suicide, this period alone in the house would be the time to do it. I was so weary that my friends unquestioningly accepted my request that I have a quiet week to myself. I’d also made sure that no one would be concerned if they couldn’t contact me.
As I drove the girls to the Shiloh Christian camp, near Grantville in Gippsland, all I could feel was a creeping numbness. My friend Audrey and her youngest daughter, Carolyn, were in the car with us as Carolyn was going to the camp too. I chatted to Audrey in a normal sort of way about everyday things. We travelled along the South Gippsland Highway through the canal country around Koo Wee Rup, past muddy waterways and dead flat paddocks. Audrey said something about Westernport, to our right. I nodded blankly. The miles rolled on. The girls talked to Carolyn happily in the back seat about the upcoming week away together. It wasn’t sinking in that I may not see them again. Something inside me had switched off. I turned the car into the camp, passed through the slope of woodlands at its entrance and drew to a stop in the car park. Beyond us, low-slung lodges and cabins sprawled amongst the eucalypts. This is where the girls would be when I died, I thought, detached. Even the enveloping whoosh of wind through gums overhead—normally a sound that would have me on high alert—triggered nothing.
I said goodbye to my daughters as if it were any other day.
The next morning I opened my eyes thinking of death, serene. Now that the time had come when I could act, my mind stilled. The relentless pressure of having to keep managing had eased with the knowledge that I could take matters into my own hands now and stop the pain. No longer was death a dark force, lurking. It had become a benign presence I might call on to help me. I lay in bed enjoying the peace of being alone. When you finally come to the point of thinking ‘this could be my last day’, the pressure is off. All the angst has come before.
I drew back the curtains of my bedroom and looked out the window. I could see gum trees against an azure sky and red roses blooming in the garden beds beyond. I was in a good place, a place I hadn’t been in for a long time. I sat down in the lounge-room, not focusing on anything in the house. This is what I’m going to do, I thought. It will all be finished. Isn’t it strange that I don’t even care about the girls? So this is how it feels when you’re going to end your life. I rolled the thoughts around, then began to say them softly.
‘I’ll be free of sorrow and free of pain. I can leave behind all this heartache. It will all be so peaceful.’
I stopped. I had the strong sense that I was not alone. I drew a long, slow breath, listening. I turned my head and looked over one shoulder. There was no one there; no movement, no noise. But suddenly I felt there was a presence with me in that room. At this point, a calm voice that seemed to come from deep within me said, ‘This is not what you’re looking for. You don’t want to do this. you will find the peace you’re seeking, but not this way.’ There was no sense of judgement or condemnation, just complete understanding and unconditional love. I closed my eyes and just absorbed the encounter. What if I were to take my own life and didn’t find the peace I longed for after all? What if I found myself separated forever from all that was meaningful in my life? I was being given a clear choice. The message transcended all the troubles I’d been experiencin
g. I felt I was being guided to say ‘yes’ to my life, whatever it might hold. And so that day, a little reluctantly at first, I turned from the option of dying. It no longer seemed to offer the peace and serenity I was seeking. Instead, I decided I would continue day by day, hour by hour if necessary with what had become my existence. Hopefully it would become less of a struggle. Maybe I would become better at dealing with the pain. Maybe I could even become happy again. So after all the long struggles that led to my decision to end my life, I made the commitment of my life: to take this path and see where it took me.
I can’t pretend that it was easy from then on. It most definitely wasn’t. But never again was I tempted to find consolation in thinking that ending my life was an option. I had stared death in the face once again and replied with a resounding ‘no’.
35
FACING MY REALITY
After the hiatus that followed the end of my marriage, my life assumed a contented plod. It was just head down, keep managing.
I learned to more readily accept offers of support and practical help from friends and acquaintances, and was frequently struck by their extraordinary thoughtfulness. The Prof, who never said much to me on personal matters, discovered one day that Terry and I were no longer together, and rang me at home to ask if I was alright—a gesture that meant so much to me. In the months following, whenever I’d see him in his surgery for check-ups, he’d sit me down, get me a cup of tea and, pushing aside any medical concerns, ask how I was managing. When I expressed my concern about the extra time he was giving me and the patients still waiting to be seen, he would brush it aside and say matter-of-factly, ‘Well they’ll just have to wait, won’t they!’
I learned to budget my energy the way I did my finances to avoid getting overtired, at times cutting back on social engagements or going to church. Housework and the garden took up a large part of my time. It could take me all day—interrupted by long rest breaks—to mow the lawns or finish the washing or ironing. I had remained very much my mother’s daughter about ironing—pressing sheets and underwear! When I went shopping, which I limited to one day a week, it would wipe me out for the rest of the day. Despite my limited energy, I made sure to spend time with friends, took up Tai Chi, and helped as a volunteer in the library once a week at the girls’ high school in Berwick. And of course there was the time I spent with the girls, doing as many mother-daughter things as I could manage.
As Sarah and Rachel grew up, it became more difficult for me to really fathom what effects the experience of the fires and its aftermath had had on them. On one terrifying night in 1983 they saw their mother burn then disappear from their lives, their home ignite, and the pet dogs they loved run away in fright. Even with the steady, faithful care of Terry, family and friends at the time, I knew it must have taken a permanent toll on them. Sarah, who was always the more complex of the two, had a deep need throughout her childhood to talk and write about the events surrounding the fires. This was clearly her way of processing it all, and no detail was too small to be discussed. Rachel, on the other hand, didn’t appear to need that at all. One day, concerned that she might be bottling things up, I said to her, ‘What was it like for you sitting in the car with Sarah on the night of the fires?’ She looked up briefly from what she was doing, with an impatient look on her face and said matter-of-factly, ‘What do you think? It was hot of course!’ And that, for her, was the end of the conversation.
Fortunately, both girls were growing up to be determined and strong-willed, as well as capable and mature for their age; qualities that helped them overcome the challenging early childhood events, including their parents’ separation. Ironically, our divorce eventually came through in 1993—somewhat inappropriately on the 25th of December.
A major factor ensuring their emotional development and wellbeing was Terry’s ongoing close involvement with them. They stayed with him every weekend and shared their time between both of us during school holidays. Neither of us wanted to quarrel. Terry and I never argued about money or possessions after the separation. We both held the hurt in and dealt with it as amicably as we could. Whilst it was difficult—we’d see each other every week when Terry picked up the girls and brought them back—and it opened up that wound, there was no animosity; it was all very civilised.
One of the biggest things I struggled to accept in the years following the fires was the reality that I was now a person who had disabilities. Before Ash Wednesday it was unusual for me to even catch a cold. Being sporty and strong was part of my being. I valued this highly and couldn’t—or wouldn’t—get it into my head that it had all changed. It frustrated me greatly that I couldn’t play the sports I used to. I’d competed in badminton right up until the fires but now my left hand, in particular, had lost a great deal of its former agility. Other areas of my body were tight, too.
I would reflect back on my years at Nelson Grammar, recalling the elation of being on the winning netball and tennis teams. I remembered the time when my school house introduced a house cup for sport—the Thursby Cup—and I was the inaugural winner. I pictured myself in my Julie Andrews’ haircut holding up the cup on our front steps in Barrowford as Dad took a photo of me with his Brownie Box camera. I thought of the ladies’ badminton tournament I’d won as an adult, and my glow of pride as I took out the best and fairest title. I re-lived the exultation of flying around the bend and crossing the finishing line as Rowena Crowther trailed in the athletics meeting. How difficult it was for me to reconcile that girl with her sporting prowess, the joy and confidence with which she embraced this part of school life, and this broken body now, with all its limitations.
After Terry and I separated, I applied for, and received, a Single Parent’s Pension which stopped when Rachel turned sixteen. I had appreciated this support, but at the same time resented my reliance on it. When it ended in 1994, I made up my mind that I could get along without aid, even though Social Services had strongly suggested that I apply for a Disability Pension. I hated being on welfare—in my hometown in England you’d somehow failed if you had to go on welfare. I hated even more the idea of being officially disabled. Obviously, I was still living in some kind of fantasyland unable to face the new realities of my life now.
Terry, who like everyone in his family was wonderfully generous, had given me money faithfully every week since we parted, as much as he could; so I decided that the girls and I would make do on this income. Both of them had part-time jobs by that time—Sarah in a café in Berwick and Rachel in a fast-food outlet—and so were able to buy some things for themselves. But it wasn’t long before the bank balance shrank and I was unable to stretch out the money available until Terry’s next payment. I knew I was in trouble when I had to ask Rachel to lend me money to buy bread and milk at the end of one week. Even then though, I couldn’t admit to myself that I had a disability severe enough to be eligible for the Disability Pension. That was for disabled people, surely.
A timely incident intervened before I ran out of money completely. I answered a phone call from the girls’ school one morning: Rachel had been injured during a sports session and needed to be picked up right away. She was lying down in the sick room when I arrived, looking pale. She’d twisted her knee badly and was unable to even walk to the car.
The diagnosis at the doctor’s surgery soon afterwards wasn’t good. It seemed likely that she’d severely damaged her leg and would need to visit a specialist, possibly for an operation. To my shame, all I could focus on was how much this might cost. Hundreds, surely it would cost hundreds of dollars? I snapped out of it. What on earth was I thinking?
Once the visit to the specialist had been organised, I helped Rachel into the car and we drove home. She was worn out by the effects of her injury and happy to climb into bed for the rest of the day. After seeing that she was settled, I made myself a much-needed cup of tea and sat down to calmly think things through. I had to forget my pride and seek the financial help we needed. I made plans to do it the next day.
36
MELTDOWN
Ever since the fires, the approach of summer had been fraught, my anxiety rising with the temperature. As each season passed I hoped the next would be less difficult and that the fear would subside, but it never did. In the summer of 2002/3 the time bomb that had been ticking inside me since Ash Wednesday finally exploded.
I had learned early on to steer clear of the images that brought back my fire experiences. I was always careful about turning on the radio or the television on days of high fire danger—if I wanted to watch a particular program on TV, I’d tape it and take out all the ads. When I walked into the newsagency I’d avoid looking at the papers in case a fire story was on the front page. But it was impossible to guard against reminders of the fires absolutely. There were hot days when I’d go outside and smell smoke, and it felt then as if my whole body was transported right back to that day in 1983. Terrifyingly, memories would flood to the surface and take over my mind and body. It was completely outside my control.
