Too Afraid to Cry

by Ali Cobby Eckermann

  Seventy Four

  My new confidence dissipates on my first day at the Aboriginal Community College, where I have enrolled to do a visual arts course. Everyone else seems to know everyone else, but I sit quietly on my own in the garden. I feel nervous that someone will ask me questions about my family. I have only really known my mother for a few weeks.

  Everyone turns out to be friendly, and a lot of people actually know my mother. A few of the older women find me at lunchtime to say hello. It seems there was always a rumour about my mother having another daughter.

  Classes are very casual, and a lot of fun and teasing bounces around the room. I still feel self-conscious and shy, and I just want to focus on the course.

  An avalanche of creativity has built up inside me since meeting my mother and learning our family story. Whenever I complete an art piece, I feel a personal celebration in my heart. I feel dead chunks falling off my darkened soul. I also feel shame, so I burn all my art pieces.

  One day Big Brother turns up unexpectedly. A lot of the students are related to him, and he introduces me to everyone. I feel my confidence returning thanks to him. Big Brother and I decide to pool our money so we can buy some takeaway to take home to his kids.

  Seventy Five

  It is the celebration of Australia’s first National Sorry Day. I have been on the phone to Mum Audrey for weeks, hearing about all the events happening around the country. I feel proud to be her daughter.

  The Aboriginal Community College is hosting the local event, and Big Brother and I arrange to meet there. It is evening time, and campfires flicker around the oval. The smell of food fills the air. Family groups are gathered, and performers sing songs that stir my spirit. Children join the singers on the stage, glowing with pride for their heritage. I watch the children’s faces.

  A torrent of emotion whips through me. I can’t stop crying. I can feel my brother hugging me, but I can’t stop crying. I can feel other people around me, but I can’t stop crying.

  Heather, my caseworker from Link Up, sits with me, holding me, waiting for the sobbing to slow. She leads me over to a campfire, to sit in the smoke. Some of the older women join us. One of my student friends gives me a joint, to relax me.

  Afterwards, Big Brother decides to accompany me, to make sure I drive home safely. On the way home it feels like the car is wobbling and drifting all over the road. I worry that something is wrong with the steering until I realise how stoned I am. I had been so upset I had forgotten about the joint I smoked. I get the giggles. Big Brother is not impressed and insists on driving the rest of the way.

  Seventy Six

  Mum Audrey and I often talk on the phone. I plead with her to introduce me to my brother and sister. I can’t understand her hesitation. Her reluctance seems unfair. She always seems to be side-stepping the issue.

  I invite her over to stay for my graduation, to celebrate the completion of my first certificate course at college. The day is filled with Aboriginal pride and family. The older women at college enjoy catching up with Mum. They haven’t seen her since they were young.

  After the graduation Mum Audrey agrees to introduce me to my brother Patrick. She arranges for us to meet for a meal at a restaurant by the beach. He is surprised to learn he has an older sister. At first we are shy towards each other. He shows me photos of himself and our sister Lisa with my niece and nephews. I can’t wait to meet Lisa. Mum asks us to wait until she tells Lisa herself. Mum still seems to be struggling though, finding it difficult to fully relinquish the secret of my existence.

  During one of our calls Mum tells me about her eldest sister, Aunty Lorna, who lives at Oak Valley near Maralinga. Mum loves to emphasise the fact that we have traditional family living out bush. She is proud of her birthplace. She is proud that our family members speak their traditional language fluently and practice traditional law. She is proud she is Yankunytjatjara, and so am I.

  Mum also explains that I have a young niece, also living at Oak Valley. Family out bush want her to leave the community because she has been promised in marriage to a much older man. Mum Audrey asks if I could look after my niece. Family way she is my daughter.

  I have no idea what to say. So I say yes.

  Seventy Seven

  Her name is Minya Audrey. She is named after my mother. I think she is amazingly brave because she has never been to the city before, and now she has travelled halfway across the state to stay with someone she has never met. We haven’t even talked on the phone. Minya is only twelve years old!

  I meet her at the bus station in the city. She looks straight at my face and studies my eyes. ‘Hello Aunty,’ she says, and leaps to give me a hug. As we hold each other, I can feel the intensity of her spirit.

  I watch her fall asleep that night. I keep staring at her beautiful face. She looks exactly like a younger version of Mum Audrey. I replay the moment Minya acknowledged I was family by looking into my face. The realisation that my family characteristics extend beyond my mother is fantastic. This is a new experience for me. It is a beautiful sensation to know I belong.

  In the morning I hear the front door slam. I hurry from the kitchen to her room to find that her bed is empty. ‘Minya,’ I scream out. She comes back straight away. ‘What’s wrong Aunty?’ she asks. I ask her why she went outside. She says she was going next door. I tell her we don’t know our neighbours. She doesn’t believe me. In her community at Oak Valley everyone knows everyone. She wants to know what sort of community she is living in now. It is the first of many questions.

  Minya is a seesaw. She is so strong in culture ways, and so naïve in city ways. I am the reverse. So we teach each other. We play tricks on each other, and laugh at each other’s mistakes. We grow close like mother and daughter. She teaches me family.

  Seventy Eight

  Minya forces my inner child to come out and play. My inner child is often sad, and Minya teaches her to trust and to heal. Minya uses traditional knowledge she learnt from Aunty Lorna, who is her grandmother. She begins to teach me language, and tells me lots of stories from out bush. I promise to take her back to visit Aunty Lorna during the next school holidays.

  We discover the city together. Minya loves the markets. She has never seen so much food, or so many people. She listens, and recites every foreign language she overhears. She makes friends with an old Italian woman from one of the stalls. Minya calls her ‘Market Nana’. Sometimes Nana gives us extra fruit and vegetables.

  Minya and I attend every free Nunga concert and art exhibition opening in the city. It is our best social outlet. She always scans the crowd for familiar faces. She is always looking for family. I am always surprised by how many people she knows.

  Minya is very beautiful in her adolescence. Sometimes my instinct roars, and I am learning to heed those cautionary warnings. I don’t trust all people to be her friend. It is my job to protect her. I love being her Aunty and Mother. And I need her, and don’t let her out of my sight.

  Minya likes spending time with my adopted family too. We often visit Mum Frieda on weekends. Sometimes we drive to the farm. Minya makes good friends with my nephews, who enjoy her enthusiasm to learn new things. I can relax in the country, and I am happy when my two families are together.

  Lighthouse Woman

  Lighthouse woman navigates through Central Market

  Vendors shouting a multicultural song

  Buys tamarillos and tarragon, grapes and goat cheese

  Fills her hessian bags with gratitude

  Behind her in the darkness

  Broken and maimed children turn

  Raising their faces to her aura

  Enjoying the warmness of light

  In her kitchen she brown paper bags avocado

  Sets tomatoes on the window sill to ripen

  Nibbles on fresh roasted chest nuts

  Washes lettuce for the crisper

  Opening the fridge her world begins to flutter

  Fridge light strobes like broken Super 8


  Sinking to her knees she whispers

  ‘Ah the children are here’.

  Seventy Nine

  My friend Michaela buys me a fridge magnet that reads ‘love is grand, divorce is twenty grand’. My divorce comes through and proves the truth of that!

  I buy my dream car, a green HZ V8 Holden station wagon. Having reliable wheels allows Minya and me the opportunity to travel. Minya makes a bed in the back of the car. Merlin comes everywhere with us. He is a good dog, and he protects Minya.

  We drive to the west coast to find Minya’s mum, Thelma. Aboriginal way she is my sister. She lives with her traditional husband in the bush, on the edge of our family homeland. I am shy to meet them. Despite my efforts I don’t understand much language. But Minya’s mum and dad are happy to meet me and talk English to me. They are shyer than me, so Minya does most of the talking. Minya is happiest when her two mothers are together.

  One day we drive to the mission to meet Uncle Gudja, my mother’s brother. He is a cheeky, generous old man, loved by all the community. He has a great reputation as a wombat hunter, and today he has captured one to cook for us. The preparation and cooking is a long, slow process that allows us hours to talk and to share stories. Everyone is happy that Minya is back with her bush family for a while.

  This is the same place my big brother found his family years before. Almost everyone I meet is related to either one of us. Many members of his family are married to members of my family. I feel so connected.

  I am invited to attend Women’s Business on my grandmother’s land south of Uluru. It is a two-day drive across the desert. So many women from Central and South Australia are gathered together. So many Aboriginal women honouring ceremony. Dots of campfires are scattered across the meeting ground. It is a special place.

  I start to get sick. I feel overwhelmed and can’t stop crying. At night I can hear despair and wailing from across the desert dunes. One of the old women tells me these are the Spirits of the people who died from the atomic testing at Maralinga. She says many of the Spirit people are my family. I can’t stop my tears.

  She leads me to where a larger group of old women are gathered. They talk in language for a while and learn who my family is. The old women laugh to celebrate that I made it back to my family. The old women laugh because they have the skills to heal me. The old women laugh because they are my family too.

  They look into my face and into my eyes. They dance and sing around me. They welcome me back to my traditional country. They give me my skin name. They rub me with their healing powers and heal me using traditional medicine. They rub me again and remove the ice block from inside me. Then they heal the hole in my guts.

  I can’t stop crying. It is a mixture of release and joy.

  Ngankari

  arms wrap round Nana

  smell the campfire hair

  seven sisters dance under

  Pleiades all night

  chanting and singing

  laughing and joy

  in the morning

  big clean up time

  women scramble in

  Toyota dreaming

  dust trails linger as

  the girl waits

  ochre signals ochre

  ngankari ngankari

  sickness is gone

  you good now girl

  go get the world

  Eighty

  It is school holidays, and Minya and I have booked tickets on the train to travel to Oak Valley. Minya is excited to see her Grandmother, and I am eager to meet my Aunty. We ride the train through the night. It is the same railway line along where my mother was born. It is the same railway line where I lived years before with my son’s father. I tell Minya about my son, her brother. She cries, and tells me her older brother was run over and killed by a car when he was four. She cries because she sometimes has trouble remembering his face. She cries because the family still miss him.

  The train slows to a stop, and we disembark to nothing. The railway camp where I once lived is all gone. The houses and work sheds have all been removed. Only concrete slabs show where houses once stood. I stand on the concrete slab where the house I lived in once stood, the house where my son was conceived. It feels surreal. I see a tangle of chicken mesh and tin. I remember the chooks.

  The shop keeper from Oak Valley has driven to meet the train, and to give us a lift. We drive further inland for two more hours. Minya is so excited and points out the landmarks. Soon she will see her Nana again. Soon I will meet my Mum’s big sister.

  The shop keeper drops us off outside Aunty’s house. Minya runs off to see her cousins and friends. I stand on the verandah with the luggage. The door creaks open, and an old woman peers at me through the screen door. She looks at my face and into my eyes. ‘I told her not to worry,’ she mutters, ‘I told her you was family.’ She walks back in to the darkened room. I follow her inside. On the table there is a faded tablecloth and a pot of tea. She pours us both a cuppa. Then she reaches over and holds my hand.

  Aboriginal way she is my mother straight away.

  Eighty One

  After a few days with Mum Lorna, I begin to dream. The nights are filled with endless dreams, and I wake exhausted each morning. Minya helps me to tell Aunty about the dreams. Aunty holds my hand. She tells me in language to be happy. She tells me in language that my spirit is releasing old pain. She tells me in language this is the gift from our country.

  Aunty is excited to teach me culture ways. We sit outside in the sunshine, and she sings songs. Willy-wagtails flutter nearby, dancing. Aunty seems to know them. Other family members join us for singing and food. They teach me to listen to my instinct. I learn responsibility, to myself. I learn obligation, to others. I begin to learn to trust.

  I learn that I can’t fully live their traditional lifestyle, and that they can’t live mine. So we compromise. My family teach me bush way, and I teach them the whitefella ways. We grow smarter and stronger as one. Together we are family.

  Family

  Nana yells over the campfires

  wiya wanti, whitefella wiya

  this my family, they bin taken away

  this my family, they bin come back now

  we gotta teach them proper way

  she laughs holds my hand

  is right now she smiles

  sit down on the munda

  and the learning begins

  now Nana has passed away

  how will I learn?

  I still can’t talk my language

  Aunty yells over the campfires

  wiya wanti, whitefella wiya

  this my family, they bin taken away

  this my family, they bin come back now

  we gotta teach them proper way

  she laughs holds my hand

  is right now she smiles

  sit down on the munda

  and the learning continues

  Eighty Two

  Minya and I return to our city routine back in Adelaide. She is enjoying going to a Nunga high school, Warriapendi, and I am enjoying my arts course at the Aboriginal Community College. We have a small group of friends, and continue to explore the city every chance we get. We go to the zoo. Minya hates it! She doesn’t understand the cages. Our favourite place is the beach.

  Minya tracks down her Uncle Jeffo. He is her mother’s younger brother. He often stays with us. Sometimes he comes to the college with me. Everyone seems to know him. I meet so many people who are kinship family. Then I meet Aunty Lola.

  Aunty Lola is my mother’s cousin, and lives in a nearby suburb. She has four children. They welcome me into their family, special way. I grow close to my cousins and their children. Minya and I visit them all the time. Aunty is so kind to me, and it feels like we have known each other for a long time. The three of us often visit family on the west coast of South Australia. We always take Merlin with us. Aunty Lola has a beach house on home land, and she helps me grow my relationships with the bush mob. Thelma and her older brother R
ichard often visit Minya. They teach me about bush tucker, and how to catch sleepy lizards and shellfish. We go fishing and swimming together. They teach me the family tree. I love our time on country.

  I still share a close connection with Aunty Lola in the city. When I think of her, she rings me on the phone. I enjoy watching the instinctive nature of my family. It allows us to care for each other in special ways. I feel special, and she often tells me I am!

  Her youngest brother, Uncle Wayne, visits from the west coast. I drive over to sit with him. He always has so many stories. Aunty greets me at the front door, then takes me out the back to sit down with Uncle. She starts to cry.

  ‘When you was a baby you was promised to me,’ Aunty says slowly. Her words aren’t making sense in my head. ‘Your Mother made arrangements that you would grow up with me, be another daughter in my family.’ I sit watching her face. I don’t think I’m breathing.

  Uncle tells me that another two of my uncles set up a trust fund for me. They went away shearing and sent money back every pay to help grow me up. ‘It was all arranged,’ he says quietly. Someone brings us a pot of tea.

  ‘Your uncles and I came to pick you and your Mum up from that hospital. The matron told us there was no baby. We thought you died. Your Mum couldn’t stop crying. She just sat holding the bunny rug we bought for you. We never knew what to say.’ I sit watching their faces. I still don’t think I am breathing.

  Aunty pauses for a bit. ‘I always told my kids, when they were growing up, that one sister was missing from us,’ she continues. ‘We realised later that your mum must have been tricked, that someone took you away. Poor thing, she never talked about it before she went away.’