Part 10

Love links

If I had ever considered that parenthood was a great and wonderful time of growth, exploration and devotion now I know that being a grandparent is even better. I remember reading somewhere that grandchildren were so great, if only we had bypassed the children and had the grandchildren first.

Perhaps it is because we have already gone through the hard business of being parents, having to learn as we go and taking responsibility for our children’s development, that now with our grandchildren we can relax and enjoy their company, free of this responsibility.

As grandparents we can give our grandchildren our unconditional, uncritical and constant loving. One cannot always announce to the general public their great pride in their children, but there are no limits to the pride of grandparents. For everyone knows, and it cannot be disputed, that one’s grandchildren are the best, the brightest, the cleverest and the fairest in the land and this without the slightest hint of prejudice.

There is a double joy in being a grandparent. Not only do we have the opportunity to forge a relationship with our grandchildren, we can begin a new relationship with our children. No longer are they separated from us by the generation gap, now they are on the same side of the fence as we are. We are all parents and are responsible for the lives of our children.

The joy I experience each time I see young Matthew, our newest grandchild and first grandson cannot be surpassed. We watch in wonder as this little person explores his world around him. Rae, his mother, does a wonderful job in taking care of him. She is tuned to his moods and behaviour. She instinctively knows just what to do to settle him or get him to sleep. His smile lights up his face and his chuckles fill the room when he catches sight of his mother.

He delights in his five bigger cousins and follows their every action around the room. Already he knows that he is more like them, these little beings that move so quickly and whose speech is of a higher pitch than that of the adults around him. Sunday is Dad’s day, and Steve takes care of his young son. Perhaps they take a visit to the local hardware store for secret men’s business, or dressed in matching overalls do repairs about the house. The image this conjures up to me of young Matt at nine weeks of age in his work overalls and T-shirt actually helping his father has me in fits of laughter. However, the bonding of these two is palpable and the foundations for a great father-son relationship are already being laid.

Paige, at three years of age, is a delight to engage in conversation. One day when her mother was at work and I was in charge, out came the pencils and paper.

‘Draw me a house, Gran,’ she asked, so I started one immediately. ‘No,’ she said, ‘You have to draw your house at Warburton.’

I began again, first folding the paper vertically into four, with two wide and two narrow segments. On each part I sketched a face of the house. Then together we drew doors and windows, and added coloured curtains at each window. Paige suggested we write a story about the house.

‘This is the window of the snug. Here the cosy fire keeps us warm on the cold nights. Here is the front door to the hallway and the big staircase that takes us up to the bedrooms. This is the window beside Paige’s special bed so she can see the

garden,’ she dictated to me.

Then by folding the page we created a three dimensional house. I was very proud of my handiwork until Paige turned the paper over and exclaimed, ‘But Gran, you haven’t done all the rooms inside.’

I am still trying to work out how to create every wall of every room and every floor space of a two storey house on a single sheet of paper.

I really miss the three grandchildren in Samoa. It has been so hard not to be able to see them each week and to be part of their lives as they are growing up. I use email and snail mail, and of course the telephone, to keep in touch, and look forward to visiting them again. For Christmas, I spent hours of fun designing and creating a wardrobe of clothes for each of their baby dolls. I was thrilled to discover that my present was well received and has kept Emily, Lauren and two and a half year old Stephanie happily occupied inside the house during the wet season.

The joy and pleasure I gain from interacting with the grandchildren is tremendous. It is wonderful to have the opportunity to watch them grow and see their personalities develop. There is nothing better than having a conversation with each of them and to hear their views on life. I treasure these times I have with them and I celebrate that I am alive to enjoy the relationships that we are forming together. It is certainly a very successful means of distracting my mind from the painful effects of my stroke.

Visual

One of my main distractions from pain and greatest enthusiasms in my life has been in following our daughter, Alli, in her career path in photography and graphic design. It was just a few weeks after my stroke that Alli needed to complete her folio for her final year in Photography at RMIT. It was to be a collection of abstract images taken at night around the three main Melbourne freeways.

The hard steel structures and solid concrete beams that by daylight, looked functional but unattractive, were transformed at night into light and evocative structures. It was with great interest that I joined her as she explored the various walkways beneath, beside and above the freeways. She used blur and the constant moving of her zoom lens to produce image associations similar to that a speeding motorist would experience. She photographed them against the black canvas of the night sky. Each object, whether it was a large pillar, a pedestrian bridge, or steel suspension wires, became an extraordinary and transient work of art with glowing colours and radiant patterns of light.

Her final images were stunning and Alli sailed through her degree with distinction. As a result of this folio she realized that her greatest desire was to continue her exploration of design in graphics, and the following year was accepted into the Bachelor of Graphic Design course at RMIT.

I am learning so much as I watch her incorporate the good design principles into each of her new assignments. She has given me a new way of seeing, a different way of looking at the world and I can carry this knowledge with me when I use my camera. It does not have to be confined to something as large as a sunset. If I look closely I can find beauty in the smallest detail. The light shining in a particular way or the texture of bark on a tree. All these things give me pleasure.

I have learnt how important the composition of an image is. Concentrating on creating a focal point to draw in the viewer’s eye and developing an awareness and sensitivity to light helps to create the perfect shot. There needs to be a balance between all these elements to produce the right atmosphere and ambience.

Alli was required to produce a series of photographic images taken only in the central business district of Melbourne. The resulting images were to be used as a booklet welcoming tourists to Melbourne. The brief required that the images should represent an image that was familiar to the overseas visitor and that would evoke memories of their own cities. It would also provide an opportunity to showcase Melbourne as a multicultural city.

Alli was concerned that she would be unable to carry out this allotted task as her work prevented her from spending time exploring the city in depth. I pulled out my photographs of London and Rome, taken when I toured Europe many years earlier, and showed her several English arcades and streetscapes, reminiscent of Melbourne. I offered to escort her to my favourite parts of our city where such images could be found.

Many, many years earlier when I started working at Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute I would take the opportunity each day to explore a different route through the city to reach my tram route. I loved the arcades and little lanes that connected the major streets and spent plenty of time discovering them all. Later on, I joined a walking tour exploring in detail the history of these small thoroughfares and had even borrowed books from the local library on the subject. All I had been waiting for was someone to share my interest in this.

We had but two hours one Sunday morning to achieve the impossible and succeeded. Alli taking sixty photos of various parts of Melbourne while I ferried her around in the car and found suitable parking. Then it was off to the photo laboratory to have the films processed and home to chose the perfect images. By nine-o’clock the following morning the assignment was complete and ready to be handed in on time. Alli was thrilled when she received the highest accolade possible for her work. A high distinction would have been a perfect score, but she did better than that – an elephant stamp on her assessment – the equivalent of a gold medal in achievement.