Washing line slideshow

There is a team of light blue, freshly washed basketball shirts hanging on my washing line.  Neatly hanging in a row and gently swaying in the afternoon breeze, this washing load speaks to me as another marker in time along my life journey. 

As I pegged the pieces up one by one in the warm summer sun amid the gentle background buzz of a weekend afternoon, I drifted away in thought and nostalgia.

I recalled my early loads of washing, in my very own home, when I lived alone empowered by my feminine independence.  The loads were fashionable, colourful, hardly dirty in fact except for smudges of makeup, but still picked up in the weekly laundry routine. They hung on a classic Australian Hills Hoist which commanded most of the backyard in my 70s-style, suburban duplex.

A couple of years later my smalls became mingled with those of my husband and the increasing loads jostled for space on the washing line.  I recalled hanging his clothes with domestic pride and feeling strangely fulfilled as I aired, washed and ironed our 'dirty laundry'.  It was a time of simple pleasures and great happiness.

As we moved to a larger home in preparation for our next life phase, we traded in the Hills Hoist-in-residence for a long-line version facing the warm north sun (to ensure maximum drying efficiency!).

This line has now carried the weight of over a decade's worth of family washing.  And today while hanging the basketball team shirts, I remembered the days pre-children when I carefully and lovingly hung a row of 000 singlets in pastels and white, awaiting the arrival of our first child.

The next memory in my washing line slideshow was a line full of toddler and baby clothes - so tiny, some still stubbornly-stained despite the overnight soak, and all multi-coloured boasting my blessings both pink and blue. 

Rosters of painting smocks and pre-primary towels graced the line many times over the years and while I always returned them clean, despite my scrubbing efforts, they were never spotless!

While still brightly coloured and clearly gender specific, the clothes are now larger and are no longer tributes to warm fluffy snuggles, banana stains or  toilet training.  Some are glittery and glamorous, others are practical and emblazoned with humor.  

My washing line is a roll call of team sports, school uniforms, business shirts, fitness bursts, middle-age fashion, blossoming bodies, lonely socks and daily changes of underwear!  

... and this is exactly the stage of life I am happy to be in.

Life, loss and legacy - lessons from losing my father

The morning after my father's death my brother buried his grief, angrily chopping wood, and while my mother cried in despair, I numbly wiped the bright red nail polish from my toes to begin a period of respectful mourning.

It's a snapshot in time that I'll always remember. 

It's been three years now since that day and my life has been as equally enriched by the depth I've grown through experiencing a parent's death, as it has been depleted by the loss of a loving, generous, enigmatic and hard-working father.

The first 12 months following his death were marked by feelings of enormous loss and grief unparallelled in my life.  

It was the year of the 'firsts'.  The first birthdays without him raising a glass of red wine in celebration; the first Father's Day with only a candle to light and grave site to visit; the first Christmas without him at the head of the table. It was 12 months of adjustment and acknowledgement that he was really gone.

As the calendar flipped to welcome another year, and we gathered as a family to remember and honour my father's memory, I found that while my grief had not eased, it had transformed from 'loss' to what I now call 'lessons'. 

In that second year I started really thinking about my father as a man and I better understood his anxieties, his aspirations and his unique character.  I recognised so many similarities between us.  Traits I had always known but had not taken the time to ponder. 

Perhaps it was my middling age that helped me translate his fears and hopes into my own life circumstance.  Whatever it was, I saw the man (not just the father) that year - and I liked him, understood him, and missed him very much.

As time trekked into the third year a new understanding emerged which even more fully deepened my appreciation of my father's life.  From 'lessons' I moved to appreciate his 'legacy'.

I suspect we all want to leave a lasting tribute to our time here on earth.  We hope that our simple, honest lives can achieve something worth remembering and honouring. My father certainly did.

It was in this third year of his passing that I saw the profound nature of his legacy. The traditions he had stubbornly established for Christmas and sacramental celebrations.  The expectations he held for the lives of his children and grandchildren because of the path he had paved through the hard work and hard times that greeted this immigrant's arrival from a far away land.

My life, my brother's life and that of our children are enacting the promise that my father made. His legacy continues now and in the childhoods of my children and their cousins. 

I wonder though if in their adulthood and the experiences of their own children, they will ever cast a thought to the courageous man who once upon a time, set the tone for this new and privileged life we now enjoy?

Death is certainly a transformative experience for those of us still living ...

The Village People

Growing up I recall my parents reminiscing about their villages in different parts of Italy.  

They would talk animatedly about their 'village people' - the diverse characters who made up their communities during the years of depression and war in 20th century Europe.  

These conversations were peppered with fabulous descriptions but never any political correctness, so I got a strong feel for the real essence of who these people were, what they looked like and how they behaved. 

Each village seemed to have, according to my parents, at least a couple of drunks, a priest, an idiot, an ugly man and a scandalised family.  

Of course there were also the beautiful girls (some who wore too much make up according to my father); the handsome men who serenaded the girls (just in time so they stayed and married and didn't migrate to new opportunities in far away lands); and of course the smart ones who should have had greater access to higher education.

What struck me about this eclectic village community was that they all lived together in apparent harmony, accepted each others' (and their own) strengths and weaknesses and just got on with it. 

I'm not sure we do this as well today.  

We have segregated our communities into 'markets' so that all like-minded individuals hang out together in their separate interest or demographic groups. We have suburbs for the rich and others for the poor, schools for the smartest, and a whole heap of stigma and services for those battling addictions and/or mental illness. 

The positive side is that everyone has somewhere they 'fit' and feel welcome.  

But what's lacking is the common acceptance for us all to live together in one village.  It seems to me that we seldom interact with people different to ourselves ... and this I think stops us from becoming completely whole human beings.