My Life: Light at the End of the Tunnel

By Gandy ‘Red’ Marlick

This is the story of childhood abuse, looking for love in the wrong places, finding the perfect partner and the journeys both share when they decide they are stronger together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Feb 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493133093

Gandy ‘Red’ Marlick

Amanda Gordon-Young is a past teacher of mature aged students and currently a child care worker. She has always loved horses and she fell off a horse in July 2006 causing TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury). This book is about her childhood, meeting Ruth, her life partner, and the difficulties they have faced since her accident.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Chapter 1.  1st stage—1 metre—My childhood

Chapter 2.  2nd stage—5 metres—My late teens and early married life to Sean.

Chapter 3.  3rd stage—10 metres—Meeting Graeme, Divorce from Sean, Trisha.

Chapter 4.  4th stage—12 metres—Move to Strathbogie; pregnant again, depression.

Chapter 5.  5th stage 15 metres—Strathbogie fire, community, kids, separation.

Chapter 6.  6th stage 20 metres—Back together, Uni, Bendigo, Marriage.

Chapter 7.  7th stage 25 metres—Separation, abortion, award, pain.

Chapter 8.  8th stage 30 metres—Goornong, Timmy stress, suicide attempt, salvation?

Chapter 9.  9th stage 35 Metres—Suzie, run away for 6 months. Decide I’m gay.

Chapter 10.  10th stage 40 metres—Move to Geelong, dealing with Suzie, family and Helen.

Chapter 11.  11th stage 45 metres—Move, buy Steiglitz, live in Clifton Springs. Huge decision to live at Steiglitz.

Chapter 12.  12th stage 50 metres—Happy 6 months before I decide to buy a new horse. Accident. Reflection on what I have lost.

Dedication

Everything I do—I do it for you . . .

For Suzie with eternal love.

Authors note

My name is Gandy ‘Red’ Marlick-Gordon and I have 4 wonderful children—3 girls and a boy. I live in Steiglitz Victoria, with my beautiful partner of 13 years, Suzie. We live on 30 acres, amongst bush and grassland, where we have 5 horses, 2 dogs, 2 cats, lots of wallabies and currawongs. It is a blissful quiet place.

In July 2006, I rode a horse I was looking to buy. I fell off, and now have TBI—traumatic brain injury. I don’t remember anything from 29 June (my 48th birthday) until 7 weeks later.

This is the story of my entire life, how my life changed as the result of my accident, how I have healed in stages and have to cope with my new abilities.

I have called this novel The Light at the End of the Tunnel, as I feel this reflects my life.

My whole life has been a series of stages—tunnels with lights at the end—the lights indicating not just the end of the tunnel, but the start of another journey.

Join me on these many journeys.

MY LIFE—PART ONE

Rainbows at the end of the tunnel.

PART ONE

Prologue. Walking at the Talbot.

I am sitting in a wheelchair, being pushed to the starting point. It is a cold morning. Is it? Or is it that I am used to the air-conditioning in the hospital? Insulated from the outside. Nikki was pushing me, and I remember her holding her breath as she got me lined up at the start of the pathway, locked the chair, and then slowly let her breat h out.

She moves to where I can see her, bends down to lift up the footrests, and walks behind the chair. "Are you ready Gandy? Are you psyched for this? You don’t have to do this today, you know, tomorrow will be fine. Maybe Suzie can be here to see you then?"

No, today is the day. I lean forward, as I grip the arms of the chair and push myself up, slowly and carefully. I stand for a few seconds, resting my calves on the solid chair for balance as I look towards the end of the path. My stubbornness sets in; I hold my breath and prepare to start. I have been practising for this, walking with a stand in Nikki’s physiotherapy rooms, practising getting up and down from a seat, swimming and doing exercises to improve my muscle tone. I am ready.

I look ahead at my walking task. Today I am going to walk 50 metres—by myself—with no nurse beside me to make sure I don’t fall! I am a little excited, but sad that no family is here to see me succeed.

No matter. My family have been here throughout this journey. I have played table air hockey with my only son in the entertainment room; I have greedily accepted chocolate from my sister and I have hugged and talked to my 3 beautiful daughters. I know Suzie’s sister has been here throughout the whole saga, even though I don’t remember her being here at all. My ex husband Graeme brought my children. He has been a great Dad to those kids—putting up with them too-ing and fro-ing from his house to mine; always being there.

And my beautiful Suzie. She’s always been there—thinking of others all the time—never of herself. Thinking first about my children, then my siblings, and then her family—in true nurse fashion. Never thinking of herself.

I’m ready to walk 50 metres—by myself . . .

CHAPTER ONE

1st stage—1 metre—My childhood

As I began to walk, I took a slightly unbalanced step. Mmm, it’s a bit like learning to walk for the first time. I have had to learn to do things, just as I did when I was growing up. Drinking tea weak at first with lots of milk, then getting stronger and with less milk; sleeping lots as I repair and recover; learning to walk again; learning to talk. I don’t remember this, but I was substituting words I couldn’t remember with ‘pillow’. My sister and my children tell me I said things like I’m going to Nikki’s room where I’m going to learn to pillow again. Now when you say ‘pillow’, what do you mean? I looked at her with a frown. Walk! Oh, with Nikki in the physio room where you are going to learn to walk again. Ahh, we understand. I looked at her like she was crazy. That’s what I said! Later on, I said Gee my pillow is uncomfortable! They looked confused. Now when you say ‘pillow’, what do you mean? I looked aghast. Pillow! I mean pillow!!!

I don’t remember learning to walk when I was a child, but I remember other things of my childhood; I rely heavily on pictures and shared stories with my siblings to flesh it out. I was Mum’s second daughter, but her first redhead. When I was born, she told everyone I had red hair. They came to visit and see for themselves—but I was bald! They thought she was crazy, but pretty soon I had glorious red hair and she looked at them smugly. By the time I was four, she hadn’t had my hair cut. Now that I am also a mother, I realize she must have had frustrating fun trying to get a comb through that long fine stuff! Children hate having their hair combed, and I’m sure I hated it, especially in a time when there was no conditioner to help a comb slip through. Still, I don’t remember it, I am only surm ising.

*     *     *

My sister, Jean, was 12 when I was born. As I got older, she used to take me around to places in my pusher and kept proudly telling people that I was her baby sister, as she looked old enough to be my mother! My elder brother, Walter, was my best friend for ages. If I used to be given a biscuit, I would only accept one if I had one for him as well. When I was 6, my brother Barry was born. My mother had had trouble keeping pregnancies for many years—losing 2 boys. My Dad firmly believed that Barry had tried to come into the world twice. Miscarrying must have been a time of great grief for Mum. I remember she kept me home from school on many days, where we’d knit in the sunny lounge room. Perhaps she was pregnant or getting over a miscarriage. Maybe it was only one day—I don’t really remember. I recall Dad telling me that the last miscarriage was at home, and he had to put the lifeless foetus in a red plastic bucket, and take Mum off to the doctor.

I remember times when Mum must have been stressed—coming home from the dentist after having all of her teeth out; with strings of sutures hanging out of her mouth. She was looking through the fridge for things to make dinner, holding a tea towel over her mouth. I know she was angry and sore, but still got on with what needed to be done.

*     *     *

My brother Barry was born in April 1964 at 7 months, and was an Rh baby. After Mum had 2 miscarriages and was pregnant again, she was taken under the wing of Professor Townsend who was conducting a study at The Royal Women’s Hospital into Rh factor and was looking for a cure. He was Melbourne University’s first Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

What is Rh factor?

The Rh (Rhesus) blood group system (including the Rh factor) is one of thirty-two current human blood group systems. Clinically, it is the most important blood group system after ABO. At present, the Rh blood group system consists of 50 defined blood-group antigens, among which the five antigens D, C, c, E, and e are the most important. The commonly used terms Rh factor, Rh positive and Rh negative refer to the D antigen only. Besides its role in blood transfusion, the Rh blood group system—specifically, the D antigen—is used to determine the risk of hemolytic disease of the newborn (or erythroblastosis fetalis) as prevention is key.

From website en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rh_blood_group_system ©2013

Mum told me about his birth. She said the nurses were well aware of whom the doctor was, and she was sure they kept pushing Barry back, so he wouldn’t be born until the doctor arrived. Now that I have had children, I can’t see how that would be possible. Perhaps it was, I don’t really know. Barry had three complete transfusions before he was well enough to come home. This was part of the trial to replace his dead blood cells with live ones. He must have been there for a while, three weeks, I understand, as Mum came home while he was still at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne. As part of the trial, women in Geelong sent their breast milk to children in the hospital, as the experts, at the time, said it was hugely beneficial for newborns. I remember when he finally came home, Mum would feed him in her bedroom, and Walter and I would play at the foot of her bed.

After she recovered from Barry’s birth, she decided to become involved with the ‘mother’s club’ committee at the Primary School, and I think she was the secretary, or the minute’s taker. Anyway, I remember her using a typewriter on the kitchen table, and she told us to play outside until she was finished. I also recall her making toffee apples, and toffees for school fetes. I remember seeing them on the kitchen table after I came home from school, and being threatened with having my nose snipped off if I touched them! I liked the days when we had toffees for sale at school, and the people who had donated sugar or vinegar got to line up before the other school kids. I was allowed to have 2, and hated the runny toffees which went too soon. Hard toffees lasted for ages, but either way, I always managed to get toffee stuck in my hair!

I also recall a time when we went for a drive one afternoon and Mum made up a picnic. Mum was angry at my Dad; I have no idea why, and at one stage threw the greasy cooked chicken at him. My little brother told his teacher and the kids in his grade about it when he was back at school and that embarrassed my Mum immensely. She was stressed out, but must have internalised that and was outwardly calm.

At times I was a very sad child—Mum called me ‘Dopey Dora,’ and said I was away with the fairies, but for some reason I remember being called ‘Melancholy Mandy’ which rhymed with Gandy. Perhaps I have absorbed the title of my favourite book series Milly Molly Mandy by Joyce Lankester Brisley. I remember sitting on the back porch, sobbing because a sparrow was killed by our cat. My Dad tried to cheer me up when I was down and that day he was mowing our lawn, as he did every week in the winter and spring. He’d push his hand mower along, and then pretend it stopped. He had a funny expression on his face and he would step over the mower, pushing the handle over the top. I recall trying to keep crying, but his antics soon had me laughing. Dad used to sharpen the mower blades regularly in the garage, with a rasp. I guess the rhythm of rasping the blades, and getting a sharp result, was a focus for him as he was trying to control his part of the world. He was master against the grass! I’m sure it was a distraction as there was really nothing he could do to help Mum, who regularly got depressed.

I liked to sit on the front step watching Dad mow the lawn. I loved the smell of the cut grass, and when I was younger, used to fill an old enamelled pie dish with cut grass, to make ‘Upside down rubble bubble cakes’. This was something I liked in the Flintstones pilot episode—"Upside down Flint-Rubble Double Bubble Cake". They’d line the path from the back door to the clothes line in Cobargo Court where we lived. I was always so calm and happy, singing as I played, but one day my brother Walter must have kicked one of my cakes away, and I was SO angry with him, I ran after him and furiously smacked him in the head with the pie tin! So much for the quiet happy girl!

My Dad had a bench and paints in the garage, where he painted signs. It wasn’t until later, that he started to draw pencil portraits of my mother. He must have had an artistic streak which I guess my sister has inherited. She painted a few pictures, mostly still lifes of shells and sea weed collected from down the beach when we holidayed at Aireys Inlet and one was a painting of me that I remember. It had a blue background and I had short hair and a freckled nose. The picture was of me when I was 6 or 7. I took it to school to show my grade. I was so very proud to have an artist in our family. I later found another pencil drawing she did of me when I was four—just before I had my hair cut for the first time.

I went to Corio State School and had a happy time there, making friends in each year, so proud to be going up to the ‘big’ school which was just another wing of the same school!

I loved grade six the best. My teacher Mr Clark made science so interesting! We were getting science with visual aids, like water leaking from a hole higher in a drum went further than one lower down. He really didn’t care about the mess! He also set us challenges like showing us 12 sheets of quarto paper, showing us how flimsy they were and telling us to work out how he could stand on the edge of them. Only one clever child worked it out, and we were so amazed when Mr Clark rolled each sheet into a tube, taped them together and stood on them! I think he was a frustrated mathematician! He certainly shared his joy of