My Mother, Joanie

World Traveller ~ Series III: Relationships ~ Episode 3

By Brett Hayhoe

There is a particular kind of love that exists between a boy and his mother — one that resists easy description. She is, after all, the woman who endured the disfigurement, the discomfort, and the pain of bringing you into the world. Some of what follows may not be entirely accurate. It is based on memory — and memory, as I have learned, is not always a reliable narrator.

The Accident That Wasn’t an Accident

My father didn’t know my mother was pregnant until his sister congratulated him after running into her at a clinic. I was, by all accounts, an accident — though as a wise man once observed, there is nothing wrong with that. My father’s family had plans for my name: Mervyn Walter Jr, after my father. My mother’s response was characteristically direct. Over my dead body. She handed the honour to my four sisters instead, and so I became Brett.

Under the Queenslander

My earliest memory involving my mother is not a proud one. She caught me smoking beneath the house — the shaded, latticed understory beneath our raised Queenslander, the kind of spot a boy thinks is invisible to the world. It is not a terribly pleasant memory. Given everything that has come since with my health, it is one I dearly wish I had taken more seriously.

Weekends and Cane Fields

My childhood was, for the most part, happy and well-adjusted. Much of it was organised around family — weekends at my sister’s cane farm in Mossman, visits to uncles and aunties, the rhythms of a large extended Queensland family in full swing. My mother and I were close, and though the rebellious years would come in time, the foundation she laid was solid.

The Dog

It was on one of those family visits that one of the most significant — and scarring — events of my childhood occurred. My uncle’s guard dog attacked me. It took two of my cousins to pull him off my face. He left a tooth mark on the top of my head and another a millimetre from my jugular. As a guard dog, he was doing what he had been trained to do — by former owners who had beaten him with sticks, hoses, pipes — and my wave had read to him as aggression. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the long leash on instead of the shorter one he was meant to wear when visitors came.

My mother’s response was exceptional. She bought me a ventriloquist doll — and given that I couldn’t open my mouth very far to speak, I ended up becoming quite proficient with it.

Sent Away, Then Fetched Back

The rebellious teenage years produced two incidents worth recording. The first: for reasons I can no longer recall, I stopped speaking to my mother. She came home one day, assessed the situation, packed my bags, and sent me to live with my sister Rae. You want to spend all your time getting drunk with your sister — then you can be her problem. Less than a week later, on one of the mornings after the night before, my mother reappeared at Rae’s front door and kicked me back home. Rae and I still laugh about it.

The Mini and the Gutter

The second incident followed a night out at a theatre restaurant — again with Rae. The trip home in my Mini took an unscheduled turn, at full speed into a gutter, and the front suspension was left operating at considerably less than its optimum. Our plan was simple: park the car at the back of the garage and say nothing. What were we thinking?

My father came over a few days later and cut straight to it. What did you do to the car? It’s been a week and you haven’t driven it. I’m not stupid. One thing led to another, and Rae and I were conscripted to help fix it. My father was a jack of all trades and master of none, but he did teach both of us how to pull a car engine apart — and put it back together again.

James and Nanna

If I am grateful for anything in this life, my mother meeting my son sits at the top of the list. They had a wonderful relationship for the time they had together. She would babysit James, hold tea parties on her front lawn, and love him the way only a grandmother can.

What Remains

My mother’s passing, when I was only in my mid-twenties, hit me very hard. Many tears. Many months. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her in some way, shape, or form. She played such a pivotal role in my life, and life since her passing has never quite been complete. As sad as it is to say, the rest of my memories are vague at best.

I wish I could remember more.

The World Traveller Series III: Relationships is written and produced by Brett Hayhoe — publisher, editor and administrator of Q Magazine.

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