Edited journal entry

In search of family…..

Father used to often tell me a story about his early years in Australia in the late 1950s. He described difficult living conditions on a farm in Queensland perhaps ….,, the lack of clean water, the poor sanitation conditions and accommodation, but above all the unbearable heat and the mosquitoes. He usually concluded that he had left that place for Sydney and that he had never looked back. My initial pity for what he had been through was usually followed by some physical discomfort, tightening of my chest, nausea or onset of mild dyspnoea. Sometimes I wondered about who or what he had left behind, but could not sustain those thoughts long enough to ask him more questions. As I grew up, I paid less and less attention to his stories. Members of the family were always telling me stories which weighed heavily down on me, and in any case, the present was already demanding too much of my energy leaving little space for me to pay adequate attention to what was communicated to me……