26/09/2025
•Ode to my Family•
Vulnerable post but I’ve been wanting to share my story and reason for quiet some time 🤍
I have one single photo of my mum
from my childhood… (also
the only photo of my Mum & Dad together).
I grew up in a little housing commission house in the suburbs in Melbourne with my
mum, dad, brothers, and little sister.
We barely scraped by each week,
but one thing we always had? Photos.
Mum photographed everything.
Our lives were documented in Polaroids and prints, all tucked away in the big wooden buffet my dad had built by hand
when he was a cabinet maker.
Those drawers were my favourite place
to sit and get lost in our memories.
But when I was 14, Dad moved out.
The next year, Mum had met someone new, found love again and eventually, stopped coming home.
Mum had seemingly detached from
her previous life. Maybe a trauma response?
A life of abuse from my dads battle with
alcoholism and the pain that came from it. Years of her own personal
pain. She didn’t know who she was anymore but she had found love & wanted
to start new for herself.
And eventually, she told us we’d all need to find somewhere else to live.
… continued in comments
