As someone who has lived their entire adult life far away from their family, Easter along with Christmas has always been a time when I packed my bags and headed back to reconnect with my loved ones. Not so this year. It’s a situation many of us find ourselves in, at the moment. Instead I am left to reminisce of times gone by, with the help of a few photographs. This week I posted an old family photograph on social media of myself with my late Dad for his birthday. Today I am posting a photograph that Dad himself took. It’s the summer of 1974-75 and we are lazing on the banks of the Macquarie River in Dubbo where most of my father’s family lived. Dad has captured a moment in time; not posed but rather a candid shot of his family enjoying spending time together.
I’m the little toddler with the strawberry blonde hair in the purple dress. Mum is sitting in the cane chair wearing her extremely stylish pink flared pants and green top (what a combination!). My newly born baby brother lies in his cane basket, under the shade of old gum tree. We are surrounded by my uncles, aunties and family friends. The riverbank was an alternative to other place we would usually gather, at my grandparents’ house. Dubbo summers are terribly hot, often over 40c for days on end. Without the modern conveniences of ducted air conditioning back then, we retreated to the relative coolness of the riverbank to pass the hottest part of the day. There were no video games to keep us inside in the 70s; no internet or Netflix to pass the time. Instead we spent it in the company of our family and friends, almost every week. There were no fancy car safety seats to transport us kids to various destinations. No expensive prams with gadgets galore. Not even a proper camp chair to sit on here; just an old cane chair and a house blanket that doubled as a picnic rug. Sunscreen was unheard of and the thousands of freckles that would invade my skin were just beginning to gather. It was a simpler time than now.
I have many photographs like this from my childhood; I’m sure you do too. Throughout the 70s and 80s we held so many parties that I knew the members of my extended family almost as well as my parents and brother. They were the people who protected me, disciplined me and taught me about belonging. A blessed childhood indeed. Over the years, as the family grew and went on with their lives, and some moved away, weekly gatherings like this slowly dwindled to our now twice-yearly gatherings, at Christmas and Easter. So, missing out on even one of these gatherings is a missed opportunity to keep the family bonds strong. Of course, this Easter we have no choice. And no-one at home is having an extended family gathering so I’m not really missing out. But the feeling of ‘the fear of missing out’ remains.
2020 has been such a tough year already for many. I have members of my family who have almost lost their homes in the bushfires. I have a family member living in Italy, which is still in the grips of the deadly Coronavirus. I have extended family in Tonga where Cyclone Harold has ripped apart infrastructure. But through it all, they carry on and just get on with it. A wise old fellow, my great uncle Bertie, who had lived through the Great Depression and WW2, once told me this. ‘The younger generations are soft and don’t know what hard work is.’ Having studied history, I was inclined to agree with him. Some of my ancestors endured hardships beyond belief. Many of the stories I will write about for this blog will be stories of tragedy and loss. Reading about their toils and troubles only makes me appreciate deeply how relatively easy my life has been, so far at least. I’ve also posted about turning this time of restriction into an opportunity. An opportunity to tune into things we can’t normally hear or see because we are usually so very busy in our modern lives. An opportunity to reflect on the good times past and plan for the good times to come. And so it will be for my next family gathering, whether that be next month, in six months or next year (hopefully not)! So Happy Easter family and friends. May the memories of happy Easters past fill your heart with joy once more. And may you still find the blessings in this; the strangest time we have ever known.