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A Preservation Project – Remembering Mum

This year it is 25 years since we lost our mum, and I have to tell you, I have felt a little lost during that time. It’s vulnerable to say, but it’s true. If you are a motherless daughter, you will understand. That feeling of connection, that knowing that there is one person in the world who pretty much fully has your back, and is now gone… that is such a stunning loss.  Although I miss my mum, my parents, and that feeling of family, ever so much, it doesn’t quite define me, but it does trip me up sometimes.  This year, being 25 years since her death, meant I had an opportunity to just reflect about what that all means to me.

I’ve spent some time this year undertaking a Reflection of Motherhood Preservation Project (if you like), to help me remember what I forgot about my own precious mum, Carolyn Gaye. She was by no means perfect, I don’t think that ‘perfect mother’ even exists. But she was mine, and I guess I have been searching for some sort of connection with her, and that feeling of “home” ever since.  It blows my mind that I can google search her name, and nothing, not a bleep shows up!!@#$%^&*. She died in 1994, just before the internet really took off, but I am so surprised that her beautiful life doesn’t even record a tiny ‘blip” on the technological super highway… So for prosperity, to honour her, and to preserve her life a little, I jumped, or rather cannonballed, into the Pool of reflection, to start documenting a little tribute to her…

Around April (her death anniversary), I was looking to look back. One of my greatest heartaches is that I only have a handful of pictures (maybe 5), of me with my mum. Not having these images (they were lost to me whilst travelling/ or we simply never captured them) really is a wound for me as an adult! I would love to be able to look at a picture and see how she loved me, how we connected!! I would look for pictures of how she looked at me, of how I looked at her, how she touched my face, arm, head, how she would snuggle me, and as an adult, what we shared physically!?! Photographs are like anchors to the past. If you are lucky enough to have them, you can hold them, run your finger over a face, or place, and almost go back in time to that moment, that feeling, the smells and be anchored to people and places that are no more.

This little project is a photo essay of sorts.  I have never done one before.  I wanted to collate both some images and words that told a little bit of her big life.  I wanted to somehow showcase things that she may have touched, that remain touched.  The photos are not perfect, the words are short and sweet, but what I realised along the way, is that I don’t think I will quite ever finish this project.  I still have a load of pictures I would like to make.  Words I would like to put down on paper.  I think this is a little space for me to be vulnerable in.  I ask my clients to trust me to capture and share their stories, I thought maybe I needed to pull back a few layers and show some vulnerability myself.

This post is not about selling.  It’s about sharing a story.  But within the process of doing this project, the “Why” I want to be a family photographer became more clear.  If anyone were to ask me my ‘Why’ do you want to run your own business as a photographer – it is this!! I have had some amazing jobs, working with some wonderful people, in the hope of making the world a better place, whether that be as a family counsellor, a change management consultant working to make cancer pathways more robust, or working with over a 1,000 women to support the breast and baby feeding journey… but you know what? The WHY I want to do this job, be a family photographer, is to make sure family’s have the pictures that matter at their fingertips (not just on a usb), but printed all bold and lush so you can touch, feel, experience and anchor back to what once was.  Beautiful, quirky, messy, colourful, dark, funny, quiet, intimate, organic, hilarious, tender, real, story telling pictures that captures a family’s real story of life and love.

This is a bit of the story of my mums life, as seen by me.

Carolyn Gaye Weber – A flame of a Woman

This lovely lass is my Mum.  Meet Carolyn Gaye Weber.  She was born October 16, 1951, and died 26th April, 1994 (it was a Tuesday).  She was 42.  She had a spirit that made you feel good.  People liked to be around her. She was a good person.  She had a huge smile. Big teeth, flame red hair, that she would lighten with blonde.  A massive laugh, with snorts and all, that would entice you in – you would laugh, because her laugh was so mad.  She loved to scream and really get in to supporting her team at the Football (watching with the Port Adelaide Magpies or the Brisbane Bears)…. and I mean it when I say she liked to scream.  Boozy nights often resulted in ‘viruses’ the next day, but she was a funny drinker “the last night as the First Lady” is a pretty epic story.  She had an all encompassing love for the man in these photos with her, our father.  She loved him with everything.  She liked to shop. She loved to smell good.  She would buy beautiful bras and underwear when she had a fight with our father.  She moved to the Gold Coast for a different life.  I kinda think she was waiting for him to come and take her home.  She loved morning walks on the beach.  Little white dogs.  She would do anything for you if she could…  She wasn’t perfect – she definitely had flaws, but her heart was good and she was loved, and is missed.

Mum and Me… the total number of images I have with her…. equals FOUR (4)… yes, that’s right?!?!!?

So, this is it… I have just 4 pictures of the two of us together.  Four.  Yes, it makes me seriously sad.  I would love to look back and see those kinda pictures that I love to make.  The ones where we are playing and laughing. The one where she is fixing my booboo.  The ones where we share an expression.  The ones where she is looking at me and I can see the love, just by looking at the photo.

It is what it is, but man, if I could fix it I would in a heartbeat…  We ‘lost’ some of our images of childhood, and others, we simply didn’t have.  Mum was always taking the photos.  I loved that she valued making pictures of us, and building a history for us to look back on. But man, I so wish she was able to exist in these pictures with us a bit more…

My Baby Album went missing whilst I was in London and my things were in storage in Australia.  Pictures that my mum had chosen and placed in albums for all 3 girls, were just gone.  I had in that album some letters, that as a 20 year old, I somehow kept, that my mum had written to me.   I had some of her words and her hand writing… When the album went missing, so did my access to those things.  My sister sent me some of the photos from my album this week, and there was a photo I remember clear as day, Mum had written my father and my names on the front bottom of the image “Bruce and Rachel”… I kinda love that I have that picture back, plus another image of just me and my mum (the one in the middle) when I had a BOTH an 80’s inspired perm and highlighted hair… but it took the total to 4, so I was excited to have another one in my hot little hand.

Things that remind me of her.

This preservation project started here.  With the 25 year anniversary of Carol’s death approaching, and knowing I didn’t have any pictures at my finger tips, I thought it could be nice to create some.  I can hardly believe it is 30 years since she and my sister moved to the Gold Coast, leaving behind family and friends. And leaving somewhere should never be taken lightly.  When you leave, those connections, those little intimacies like always running into someone you know down at the shop, or having a weekly dinner at Pops house, or just being somewhere where people know you… well you leave that too.  So when mum died, 5 years after to moving to the Gold Coast, much of her history was still down in Adelaide.  So I was interested in finding things that she enjoyed. Things that I know both she touched, and touched her… At some point I will head down south and make some pictures of things from there… but first, we start here on the Gold Coast.

She moved to the Gold Coast with my little sister in the late 1988.  Away from friends and family for a new start.  I think the all year warm weather and the laid back lifestyle brought her here.  On the weekends, she loved to head down to the beach and just walk and breathe and get her feet all grounded down in the sand.  She would tell me that in the early morning, there was nothing more magical than watching the sun come up, feeling for the warmth to hit her arms and legs, and the sea breeze rush through against her face.  She was a red head, with fair skin, but the sun would kiss her just gentle enough for a sweet little golden tan.  I think she found a lot of peace and calm at the edge of the water.  I guess a lot of people do.  I find, whenever I want to feel near her, I head down to the beach or some kind of water and try to touch some of the things that touched her…

She found a little house and made it a home for my sister and her.  She loved this little house. A big change for the huge house she moved from.   But it felt like her.  In Adelaide, we had a huge entrance hall, with a spiral staircase.  My parents would joke that after a fight, mum would grab the credit card and go buy the most expensive thing she could find… She bought these gorgeous bronze giraffes (Mum and Baby) and they sat under the spiral staircase in this little garden alcove.  She loved those Giraffes.  When she left Adelaide (on the train, as there was a long pilot strike back then), but she shipped up some furniture, probably less than half, but she left the Giraffes for my dad…. and then bought some new stone ones when she arrived on the Gold Coast.  And its funny, because years later, when Dad moved to the Coast, the Giraffes came too.  I have them now, but Im not so sure where to put them…

This was the home where she spent her final days, dying at home, surrounded by all her family.

She loved to meet for coffee and cake – and she LOVED carrot cake.  I remember how she loved to head out to Sanctuary Cove for a walk around and to find some coffee, even better if we found carrot cake with a LOT of cream cheese icing. So I drove out to Sanctuary Cove, in search of the best Carrot Cake I could find.  George’s Paragon Restaurant does not disappoint.  I headed up to their little cafe, and the staff put together this amazing coffee and cake, with flowers and cream and ice cream… It was such a sweet gesture, as I was chatting to them about the Preservation Project, and I was so grateful for the extra time and effort they took to make this look amazing… Mum would have loved that.

And finally the Bras… Yes, anyone who knew my mum, knew she had a bit of style and grace about her.  Being the 80’s, my parents had that “Romancing the Stone” kind of love affair… Hot when it was hot, and damn watch out, when it wasn’t.  I remember her coming home with Myer and David Jones bags filled with Bras.  Luxurious silky, and always matching! This woman LOVED to shop! Loved to shop! And after a fight with my dad, off she would go and buy a couple of hundred dollars worth of matching bras and underwear!! The lush kinds!!
This is one piece of advice that she wanted us to hear and know in our late teens… always wear matching lingerie, it makes you feel beautiful.

I have one story that was passed on to me – and I love it!! A good friend of mum told me this story.  Her husband’s mother had died this day.  He and my mums friend were at their parents house, with their children, doing what needed to be done.  Mum had heard and called to see what she could do.  Mum’s friend needed something for the kids at her house, and asked my mum to go and pick it up and bring to her.  They thought the back door was unlocked.  When mum got there, she realised the door was locked, and the only way in, was to climb through this tiny (I mean teeny tiny) window, 6 feet high, into the toilet room.  To this day, no-one can explain how she would have done that? How she a) managed to get up there, and b) how the hell she got down, face first, 6 feet up, heading towards a toilet? But this story pretty much sums up how I remember my mum, someone who would pretty much do anything for you.

I guess I went looking for her…

As the years went by, my little sister turned 21 (just a bit older than I was when mum died),  and I realised it was time go travelling for a while.  To be brutally honest, I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for when I left.   My plan was to go to the UK for a year, save up and spend some time in India… I was very lucky in that I did those things, but my journey lasted for 14 years.  And I travelled as much as I could.  To as many places as I could.  When I started this Preservation Project, I wasn’t sure what images I could use to tell a story of my mum, but I was really surprised as I was reflecting about her, and me, and the places I have been, how I often thought of her on my way.

I went to Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee to pay homage to Elvis because she loved him so much!!! Saturday afternoons of our early childhood consisted of banana sandwiches and watching either Elvis or Doris Day movies… These were her happy places, and she took us to them with her.

I arranged a trip to Santorini, Greece in April 2014 (20 years since her death), because she loved that movie Shirley Valentine… There is a scene in the movie about “getting lost in all this unused life“… I get a sad feeling when I think this is maybe how Mum felt near the end, about her situation… It makes me think, I need to get more busy living… she once came to me in a dream and said “You’re either in it, or your not”… so I captured Sunsets in Oia, and stayed in a cave with a view out over the Mediterranean, I ate Octopus and honey and walnut salad, and a took a few moments to read my book in the sun.

Living and travelling in Europe meant visiting many beautiful old churches.  I don’t think there was one I entered where I did not light a candle in memory of her.  I thought of her, and her love story when I travelled to the Taj Mahal.  I lit candles for both my parents on the waters of the Ganges in the holiest city of Varanasi.  I literally flew off the side of a mountain, whilst trying to toboggan, all because I shared a drunken story in a back packers in Switzerland.  And I meditated in the foothills of Dharamshala (home to the Tibetan government in exile) for understanding.  I bought a silver locket bracelet at Tiffany’s in New York – because I think she would have liked that.  Once I wept a handful of tears, whilst talking to my Dad about their love story, when I was reading the book ‘The Orange Girl” in Bern.  I said a prayer in the Notre Dam Cathedral in Paris.  I once wrote a Haiku poem for her whilst eating dinner looking up at the mountains around Lake Como.  I threw the ball for my dog Louis, on a sunrise walk on the beaches of Devon.  One time, I sat under the spring blooms of the Orange trees in Saville, just to see if I could find a feeling.  I spent a day in quiet reflection at Le Mont-Saint Michel in Normandy.  I had a sunset aperitif, in memory of her, on the Isle of Capri, Italy.  And when I turned 40, I looked for her on my soul safari to Uluru…

I think Motherless Daughters are always looking…

I get reminded of her scent… and it takes me somewhere

Carol loved to smell good!! And my memories of her always include scent.  She loved, and I think always felt a bit opulent, buying and having fragrances from Estee Lauder in her bathroom.  She would always have a number of bottles, and would, I guess like all of us, go through periods of preferring one scent over another… She had bottles of fragrances for choice like Knowing, Beautiful, Youth Dew, White Linen and then started to try newer fragrances like Opium and Poison moving into the 90’s.  I guess the time that I have the clearest memory of her, is in the late 80’s, early 90’s, when I was a teenager, just before she moved to Queensland, and “they” (my parents football club crowd) would all glam up on Friday and Saturday nights and head out to dinner… every week!! It was the 80’s, and I remember Carol looking her best during this time… You would smell her before she walked into the room.  I loved that smell, I think because I loved how she felt when she was looking gorgeous and that tribute that says, yep, I look good, is when you get satisfactory spray of perfume… Luxurious, beautiful and full of anticipation!

During the years that followed, after a marriage break down, and a move to Queensland, I still remember her coming back to visit with this particular smell of Knowing on her skin.   As we moved into the 90’s things were changing, and my sister reminds me of a new scent she started to wear for the early 90’s…

It’s funny how, now, if that scent drifts towards me, I instantly think of my mum… and it takes me back to a different time…

Maybe it is a connection thing as well!!! She used to buy us a bottle of this each Christmas (she loved Christmas) so it was my first scent too really.  I have been wearing it again recently…

Her Picture and her Grandsons

These images mean the world to me. I was thinking about this project, and it started with me looking for things that reminded me of my mum.  My sister has the picture that was above my mums bed in her room, above her bed.  So I asked her if I could make some pictures with her and her boys on the bed.  I love that these little crazies don’t want to sit still!! I love that they love to jump and play with their mum! I love the look of absolute joy on their little faces when they realise they can jump on the bed WITH mum! I love how they adore her!  I love how she adores them!! And I love, that in the background, is the picture, that when I had one of the last conversations with my mum, about where she was going, she said to me, she thought her heaven sure would be a lot like this picture. A beautiful beach, with soft colours, horses running, and a sense of warmth, love and freedom…

I get a feeling that watching that afternoon play out, with the kids jumping on the bed, with her baby girl, that it would have looked like heaven to her.

You can see more images from that day by clicking on ‘here”

I don’t think this Post will ever Finish…

Thanks for making it all the way to the end… I sure do hope you enjoyed this blog, learning a bit more about me, and letting me introduce our mum to the world.  In my heart, this post is for me, and for my nephews.  The learning and understanding I have gathered from the project is quite amazing… I need to get more busy living again!!! I need to get out of my own way when it comes to my art (making pictures for others and myself) – This documentary family photography may not be for everyone, but its pretty awesome if you want to see it all…

And finally, a huge throw back to profound piece of dialogue from a movie, that deals with loss, called Garden State.  I have loved this movie since 2006/7, and this line always touched me… They are talking quite simply about a really heavy topic.  They are talking about a feeling of “Home”, and that one day the house you used to live in doesn’t feel like home anymore… and that “it’s like getting homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist anymore”…and he finishes off saying “Maybe that’s all family is.  A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.”

It’s insightful because I have been missing that feeling you get when you are in that, (if you were lucky), childhood experience of home… Now just an imaginary place that has been long gone…   I am not quite sure what it is I am looking for going forward, but my eyes and heart are open to finding something that will leave me a little less homesick.