It was summer when we arrived at the white house, half a kilometre from the village and surrounded by olive groves. It stood solid and alone. The branches on the plane trees moved to their own music and the sound of their leaves was carried on the wind as we entered the gate. A cast of eagle hawks circled high above. The fruit trees in the garden were bent with produce. Soon there would be chairs and tables along the marble verandahs.
This was my utopia, the village in the south of Greece from where my husband had migrated sixty years before. We had lived there, in the dream house we had built, for nine years in the eighties, when I had raised my children to adulthood. It was where I felt at home. The warm weather would be therapeutic: my chronic back pain had wearied me and stolen my spark. I was going to finish writing the two books I had begun. I also had plans to create a writers’ retreat. For me, at fifty, it would be a time to flourish, to do something that I felt would enhance me. Our three children had built lives of their own and I felt comfortable that we would see each other often—we were, and still are, a family of travellers.
As a child born in Cyprus into a Greek-Cypriot family, regardless of being raised in Australia, I had been taught the fundamentals of what is expected of a woman: family first, no negotiation on that. Then respect and obedience, no negotiation there either. My husband, who had migrated from Greece to Australia when he was twenty years old, longed for his homeland. His homesickness was like a seeping wound. As the core of our family unit, he was my first priority. My primary duty was to him, ahead of our three children. I had travelled between Melbourne and the white house many times in order for him to heal.
When I was forty, and back in Australia after those nine years in Greece, I had enrolled to get my school leaving certificate, determined to fulfil my longing for an education. Five years of a part-time writing course followed. Soon I was publishing articles, stories, poetry, and book and film reviews. I secured a job in a bookshop. Could life have been more perfect? I was a writer. People paid me for my words. Writing, writers and books filled my life. My dreams had come true. I loved the person I had become. I enjoyed attending writing events, and literary festivals. I realised that writers were people like me, who had built their life on words. I never wanted anything to change in the space I had carved for myself.
Thirteen months after our arrival at the white house, the call came from our eldest son in Australia. Our first grandchild was on the way. I had never given a thought to being a grandmother. It seemed another stage in life, for later, an end-of-life thing. I was wrapped up in the excitement and challenge of the present, of my writing projects.
My husband and I realised we couldn’t stay away. Our children and grandchildren would need us. And we wanted to be there. I left my projects and dreams locked in that white house and travelled back in time; I pretended that I hadn’t left Australia at all, that living again in Greece had been an illusion. I made the decision based on what I had been taught: that a mother always makes sacrifices for her family.
Arriving back in Australia, I remembered other key moments in my life. I saw myself at fourteen beneath the flowering plum tree in the backyard of our house in Melbourne—with my exercise book, a pencil and a dreamy feeling. There I was, thinking about red lipstick and velvet skirts, embroidered vests, coloured scarves and lace-up boots, the clothes I would wear one day, as a writer. I used to imagine myself sitting at a desk, papers lifted by the breeze coming through a window that filled my study with light. My writing place would have solitude and nature, the sound of the wind in the trees. That is where I would write my stories.
When I was a teenager, the young Anglo girls in my neighbourhood had boyfriends; some had babies very young, which their mothers looked after while they continued on with their lives. Those girls had laughed at the Greek-Cypriot traditions and customs by which I had been raised—they found them strange and inhibiting. I was torn. I, too, found many of our traditions restrictive, and resented the obedience expected of me, but I adhered to that principle instilled in me by my mother: family first.
My head was always buried in a book. I dreamed of going to Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School, the government-funded, academically selective secondary school in Melbourne, because that was the school for clever girls. I was filled with joy and hope by my father’s encouragement: I was ‘his only child who loved learning’. My mother had other ideas. We were four girls in the family. That meant trouble. Mum’s best friend was our local priest’s mother. Marry them off early was her sour advice, which my mother took as gospel. Her religious beliefs dictated her actions. Marriage would protect us from the world outside the family circle.
Not long after my thirteenth birthday, my father told me that, for financial reasons, he needed me to leave school and go to work. It was the last thing I wanted, but I obeyed without question. Family first…Three years later I was married.
Another key moment that came back to me was when my younger sister returned to Cyprus with my parents. At seventeen she married a Cypriot man and stayed there. Carer for my blind mother until both our parents passed away, she had also shifted smoothly into the role of carer for her own children’s children, raising them as her own. She was always available to them, day and night. Any dreams she may have had for herself dissolved. Was I destined to follow her example?
I made the decision to come home as an onlooker only in my children’s new lives as parents. I fully intended to continue with my ambitions as a writer.
And I did not object in the slightest to being included in everything: the exercise classes, shopping for the baby, doctor’s visits, the whole package that came with the pregnancy. I was excited about the arrival of this new family member. I loved him/her already.
When the pains started early that Greek Easter morning, we spent the entire day in the birthing room—and all our lives changed.
When I held my grandson, a transformation occurred. A fierce love swept through me, an awakening quite unlike the one I experienced at the birth of my own children. I recalled the Greek adage: The child of my child is twice my child. I felt that, with this new baby, I could begin to make amends for the ignorance of my youth. I had always thought I had failed my children because I hadn’t known enough at the time. I had been a child myself, selfish and unpredictable, trying to raise children. I remembered myself as a young girl giving birth in a hospital, all alone. How did I survive that? Why did it happen that way? And who was I all those years ago? Had my experiences in any way prepared me for the role that I had now chosen? I couldn’t yet tell.
The shift in my life came so quickly: I stepped into the role of grandmother as if into a new dress. It seemed the most beautiful dress I had ever owned. I seemed to glow within the light created by this child. The days were filled with activity and I tapped resources within me to do whatever was needed. I cared for and loved this new life. I grew into someone else as he grew and changed under my care.
J was one of those babies who never slept during the day except in the moving pram and for very short periods of time. I would walk him around the streets of my suburb for hours. I took him everywhere with me. His company filled the space my writing had once occupied. He was a quiet and intelligent child who grasped language and concepts quickly. He became my fourth child. How had I ever imagined being an onlooker?
Then my second grandchild, M, was born. My daughter spent the first year at home minding him. By this time J was ready for school. I willingly chose to shift from carer of one child to carer of another. Family first. My lineage was secured. What I had done for the first I had to offer to the next. My intention was to maintain harmony in the family, especially between my children. I had seen too many families fall out over grandparents not sharing their childminding time equally between their children. My own family had been far from a showcase in this area.
My daughter was Wonder Woman, capable and independent. In my opinion, however, it was to her detriment that she avoided extending the hours I had M. She was always on time and pedantic about not asking for extra help from me, no matter how stretched she was. I realise now how thoughtful she was, viewing the situation through the eyes of both a mother and a daughter. Her father called her a feminist. He’d always disapproved of empowered women. But there was a twinkle in his eye when he said it, for he secretly admired her grit. I called her headstrong, a tenacious perfectionist who was also very much like me.
M was a captivating child, full of curiosity, energy and imagination. He’d move from one project to another, trying to fit a week’s play into a day. His thirst for learning was insatiable. We moved incessantly from dress-ups to playing shop, from building with icy-pole sticks to drawing, from books to puzzles.
Although my days were monotonous and without any intellectual stimulation, I delighted in the fact that I was an influential instrument in these new lives, that I was creating memories for them to take into the future. I felt central. I felt useful. And this gave me a new identity. I measured my learning against my teaching and found it hard to ascertain who benefited more.
The third grandchild—my daughter’s second child was born and my performance continued. D was a quiet, undemanding child. His concentrated and uninterrupted play made him at times seem invisible. He especially loved it when we did baking together. I taught him how to roll out the perfect biscuit, by straightening his fingers and rolling the dough using his palms until it was the desired thickness. Then he would form a figure eight and set it on the tray with the correct space between each one. This was and still is his preferred activity.
I loved my grandchildren so much, but I was starting to have serious health issues again with my back and could not always be available. I was literally ‘wearing out’. Childcare facilities were hard to get into, although it wasn’t through lack of trying. I was so desperate that I went to the childcare centre and broke down: I begged we be given priority at the first available opening. Two weeks later, we heard back from them and, just like that, my carer’s hours were halved. My house was still where children were dropped off and picked up regularly, but childminding was no longer what consumed my life.
Many times through those years of caring for my grandchildren, I longed for my old life, when I could sit and read, write and dream. When I felt overwhelmed by the small children, I dreamed of running away. I wouldn’t tell anyone; I’d just go to a secret place I’d chosen. I even researched country towns in Victoria. I looked up train timetables. These escape plans were mad, but they gave me an outlet when the pressures of responsibility made me afraid of what would happen if I somehow failed to look after these children properly. In the meantime, I continued to oil the wheels of my children’s daily existence.
Finally, all the boys were at school. There were only the school drop-offs and pick-ups. My writing had, by now, all but stopped. The few reviews, articles or interviews I did were without pay, but I was determined not to disappear into the ether, although I thought many times about giving up writing altogether. I re-entered the race, a straggler, at the end of the line, attempting to pick up pace and move towards the destiny I had once chosen for myself.
I began to attend literary events again. I tried to return to the books I had started writing so long ago, but just couldn’t reignite the spark. Writing needs emotional energy. Mine was extinguished. I no longer had the passion or persistence to regain a foothold in the small writing community I had once been part of.
Being a grandmother had consumed me. Although I had more time now, and seemed to spend a lot of it with books, the life I had imagined for myself in my late forties and early fifties was no longer attainable. The race was not yet over, but the stakes had changed. To be happy or at least content again, I had to reconcile who I was then with the person I had become.
In Greece once again, some months after my sixty-fifth birthday, while sitting on the verandah beneath the glow of stars, the sound of cicadas flooding the air, trying to identify the direction of the jackals’ howls coming from the bushes and gullies, I took a call from our youngest son in Australia. Another grandchild on the way. This was wonderful news for all of us because he and his wife had been married for ten years and they were not sure pregnancy would happen for them. Along with the joy, I couldn’t help but reflect on the drastic change that awaited them; I wondered how they would manage after a life of travel and ease.
It had been nine years since I had cared for a newborn. I had changed, as had my energy levels, physical endurance and headspace. The continuous therapies for my chronic pain had played havoc with my mind; there were empty spaces where knowledge and experience should have been. Regardless, on our return to Australia from our holiday in Greece, I was prepared to help with this child as well.
Another boy! For six weeks, I spent twelve hours each day, except weekends, at my son’s place. Once at home, I would go straight to bed and start again the next day. There was no time for thought, let alone analysis of my life. After the initial difficulties of forming a routine of feeding and sleeping for the baby, life smoothed out for us all. When my daughter-in-law returned to part-time work, I again reverted to the role of carer, mostly at my son’s place. I shifted rather tentatively into the role I had felt in the past I was good at. It wasn’t an easy transition. I felt anxious and fearful at times because I had lost confidence in my ability to be what my children expected of me. As time passed and this grandchild grew into a walking and talking toddler full of curiosity and animation, I drew on that incredible surge of love that was mine the day I held my first grandchild.
Any plans to return to Greece for a lengthy stay became unattainable, for our lives became dependent on our children’s and grandchildren’s needs. Short stays for rejuvenation became our yearly pilgrimages.
Now that I have time to consider my contribution as a grandmother, I have decided that it was indeed necessary and valuable. Because of my passionate belief that family came first, I saw myself as the solution to any struggles my children experienced as parents. I watched my sons wrestle with work commitments while sharing the parenting role and the accompanying sleep deprivation. I knew my daughter was always stretched to the limit, but there was only so much I could offer. I continued to feel guilty and believed that perhaps I should or could have done more for them all.
Instead of accepting the enrichment that being a grandmother offered, however, I had often felt cheated. I wouldn’t let go of the grievance I felt for what had happened to that dreamy young girl full of promise, reading a book beneath a plum tree all those years ago. She saw herself as a writer, but couldn’t see all the other things that would make up the rich texture of her life, the reality of family. Just as, later, I couldn’t envisage what the role of a grandmother entailed, and so cheated myself of the wonder that came with being one.
But I made those choices, and now I can look back and examine the different identities and roles I took on, especially now that I have retrieved a portion of my writing life, which I protect with reinforced armour. The race continues. A grandmother is me at my most authentic now.
The white house is now painted different colours. It reflects the changes we have undergone over the last sixteen years. The exterior is a light grey with dark grey trim. The inside walls of the living area are painted a rich Indian red; the bedrooms are blue and cream. The verandahs remain open to the elements.
The eagle hawks—koufo gerakines in Greek—still circle the house and now make their nests in the giant oak tree in the yard. The fruit trees grow taller and stronger with time. It is still our utopia, awaiting our return.