Mum was a Gypsy

“Lymphoma” ……..she said. It hung in the air. We were all quiet, the world turned and everything changed.”

Mum was always a gypsy. Sedentary life just didn’t suit her. It was when we were on the road together or out in the bush that I would watch her bloom. Once removed from the confines of location she was like a free bird. She smiled more, laughed more easily. I could sense the release in her – feel her joy.

Her and dad would often reminisce about their trip around Australia in their little gypsy van. She didn’t need to tell me…. I knew they were her happiest memories. I loved hearing those stories, just her and dad with their dog Brewster together on the open road. I grew up dreaming of my own trip I would one day take and sometimes I felt like mum was doing the same. Counting down the days till she could retire and reunite with the road.

I was 16 years old when mum was diagnosed with cancer. It was New Years Eve and we were sitting in the living room in an awkward huddle. Mum had called a meeting – I knew it was bad, mum looked exhausted and we didn’t hold family meetings without a good bottle of red or a decent feed as a buffer.

“Lymphoma” ……..she said. It hung in the air. We were all quiet, the world turned and everything changed.

Lymphoma is the moment you stop talking about a cure and start talking about prolonging life. When you are dealing with prolonged life, your outlook on everything changes. Every moment counts because… there may not be another. There is no ‘one-day’ – the time is always ‘now’ and every action holds the weight of forever.

As I expected, mum fought. I wouldn’t have accepted it any other way. I was so young and my mum was my best friend. I selfishly wanted her around to see the adult I would become. If the cancer was aggressive then mum was more so. She took control of her treatment and beat the cancer back into submission. The day she told me she was in remission felt like the sun had decided to shine again. We knew it was only temporary. Cancer was like the devil lying dormant but at least it meant more time.

I was twenty years old when I finished my studies in photography and asked mum to come with me on a trip around Australia. The cancer had come back and her body was starting to reject the chemotherapy. Time was running out. It breaks my heart when I remember how her face lit up when I asked her to come with me. It was the best gift I could have given her… the best gift I could have given both of us. If I didn’t know that then, I certainly know that now.

We bought a little Jayco camper trailer that someone later likened to a sewing box. In the months to come. we would become a well-oiled machine, working in partnership to have the trailer up in in under five minutes. It was a point of pride for us and we would recline with our cups of tea and pass judgment on the amateurs still trying to back their caravan in 20mins later.

Anyone that has tried to reverse a trailer knows that it is an art. A true skill only very few manage to master. Prior to our trip, mum had forced me to participate in a daylong workshop to learn the ins and outs of trailer management. I rolled my eyes throughout the entire day but mum was a natural. She absorbed everything and by days end that trailer was her bitch. She could maneuver it into the tightest of spaces without breaking a sweat. She was the Miguel Indurain of trailer management. Upon our arrival at most campgrounds inevitably some deluded male would offer us assistance. Mum would nonchalantly dismiss them and proceed to blow their minds with her trailer skills. She would practically strut from the vehicle and the dumb founded onlookers would stop just short of bursting into an appreciative round of applause. She was my hero.

But it wasn’t just her trailer skills that impressed me. Mum was a country girl with some serious survival skills. She was practically a pyromaniac and loved nothing better than getting a good fire cracking then poking at it for the remainder of the night. I remember on one occasion we had set up camp somewhere in the bush. Mum had a fire underway and had just managed to get some hardcore coals cranking when were hit by a violent downpour. It rained on and off for the rest of the night. In the morning, everything was drenched. Mum picked her way through the puddles to the fire and before long, had it crackling away – ready for me to make pancakes. I was beyond impressed.

Don’t get me wrong – travelling with my mother in a confined space wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows. We quickly learnt that if either of us woke up in a bad mood it was best not to talk. Some days we would hardly talk at all from sun up to sun down. That can make for a pretty long day when you are crossing terrain that inspires names like ‘the treeless plain’. In this way, I feel our relationship evolved beyond the traditional mother daughter roles. Someone actually commented we were more like sisters.

Life on the road is beautiful in its simplicity. I found the freedom to move on at a moments notice so addictive and we quickly fell into a healthy routine of rising and falling with the sun. There was no TV and we lost touch with the goings on in the rest of the world. To entertain ourselves, we would read paperback cowboy books aloud to each other. This was my mum’s idea and apparently something she had done with my father 20 years previous. We attempted the accents and gave each character a different voice. We were totally addicted and the end of each book would send us on a search for another, scouring second hand bookstores for more stories of hero’s and villains. I can only imagine what our fellow campers must have thought.

We were on the road for six months total. Towards the end, my dad joined us, I flew back to Adelaide and he took her the remainder of the way to our holiday house in Queensland. Our trip took us from Adelaide, across the Nullarbor Plains, through the Forest of Giants near Esperence, to Perth, all the way up to Broome, through the Kimberley’s to Darwin and down through central Queensland to our final destination in Moore Park. We travelled an estimated distance of 11450 km s together. Towards the end, our little trailer limped along – proudly displaying more than a few battle scars but it soldiered on, never once letting us down. I felt like the relationship with my mother was much the same. We may have come out the other end with a few battle scars but we had endured and created a lifetime of memories that I will forever hold dear.

Mum flew out of Brisbane and was admitted straight to the hospital in Adelaide. She spent the next year and a half in and out of hospital before passing away on August the 7^th 2010. I believe it was only through sheer will and stubbornness that she was able to see out the remainder of her trip.

It is three years and one day since I lost mum and not a day goes by that I don’t think about her or miss her. I am forever grateful for the trip we took together, for her, for her way of seeing the world, for her love, her toughness. For her unwavering belief in me that is my super power I carry with me everywhere. She helped me realize that for me, travel didn’t have to be something you do before your ‘real’ life starts or something you wait till your retirement to enjoy. For me, with my camera as my portable office, travel as a constant was/is an achievable dream.

I have continued to live in the ‘now’ and make every moment count. I know she would be proud of the adult I have become and the path I have chosen for my life, I only wish she were here to see it.

Love you mum.

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