Firsts and Lasts - final blog by Rob

A week of First and Lasts.  By Rob

There is an irony, a circular completeness that oozes to mind when I reflect on the last 5 months with family here in the Torres. That this is the First week of the new year (2012) signifying a new beginning, a new life, a new year; and that it is also our family’s last week here in Darnley, seems somehow fitting.  The same old Timmings, returning home (what ever that may mean) yet as much as this is an ending, it is also a beginning for that same old Timmings family.  You see, the Torres changes people.

We cant come here to this place, and leave untouched.  We cant go ‘home’ and perceive it the way we have ever perceived it before.  The tasks that Jo and I have had to do in this world, are so far from that with which we previously identified.  Our kids have had to deal with traumas of this community that they would never have been exposed to at home.  They have equally enjoyed privileges that none of their friends have had.  Privilege packaged in unusual ways.  To attend Tomb stone opening ceremonies, funerals, and be absorbed into culture and language like none other on earth, is a blessing that perhaps they will never fully realize.

For Amy to attend school here, and learn fluent Creole, to learn old language, and dance. To sing Erubian folk tunes on an island that she would never have known existed, is monumental and life changing.  For her to see how her island friends live, and are disciplined, and are “grown up” by women of the village rather than one sole mother, is an eye opener that no amount of “cultural preparation” program could have imparted.

Experiences for Ben are also unique.  He has been taken fishing for Mackerel, reef fish and Crayfish by uncles who taught him their ways of the sea and the reef.  He has learned from elders about the spiritual world that exists in this place.  He has marveled at marine life, shells, turtles and a virtual smorgasbord that is just 100 m from where I type this blog.  These experience have changed him too.  He has an understanding of ecology and biology the likes of which no science professor will be capable of articulating.

Locals here have taken my kids in and not just shared knowledge but imparted wisdom.  I reflect on what damage I may have done to my kids education by taking away from school & friends and bringing them to this place, and in my reflection I see not destruction, but fortification to their lives, that a 100 years of school could not have achieved.

For my Wife Jo, a Blue Nurse (District nurse) with a passion for wound care, and discharge facilitation, I have seen her transform into a colleague that I would choose to work with not be placed with by default as my wife.  We make such an amazing team.  I love my trauma, and acute care, but she has learned my ropes, and the balance of knowledge has now well and truly tipped in her favor, as her scope of practice encroaches on mine.  I am immensely proud of her.  She is now so much more than the other nurse at Darnley.

Where I have grown is in experience and waist.  The text knowledge I have, being a Rural and Remote nurse Educator, is so inadequate as a functioning RAN.  This job has to be lived to be understood.  To manage Scabies, Rheumatic Heart Disease, and Diabetes from a learned course of study, is nothing in comparison to doing it.  The dynamic of lack of compliance with appointments, the clock, the medication regimen, the diet, the attitude towards healthy lifestyle is much more that half the battle when nursing these people.  For the most part the blogs have all been positive, biased towards the wonderfulness of this place and this nursing.  But the truth is not all rosy.  You know that.  You have seen the footage of indigenous communities on the TV, you have listened to the negative speak of family , friends and colleagues about the problems in these types of communities.  You have probably seen that amazing movie “Samson and Delilah”.  You have formed your own opinions of the ‘bad’ stuff that goes on.  Places where paradise is a thin veneer on a rotten foundation.  Well this place in some respects is no different.  On the balance, it is wonderful.  But the pendulum swings in any community, and there have been days where we have felt fearful for our safety, and fearful for the wellbeing of our kids.  Some times when a 9 year old girl asks questions best coming from another adult, you wonder what the hell possessed me to subject my daughter to this place.   But it is life, and its is cold and dark and undesirable sometimes, and for our kids, who have both seen the good and the bad, sadly they have also seen some of the ugly.

But lets not dwell on that now.  A host of visitors have come and gone in the time that Jo and I have been here.  We were so blessed to have been visited by My parents, and Ben’s mate LLachy the Llama.  Jo’s Sister Louise arrived, and saw a snippet of the culture yesterday when an island family maintained their annual New Years Day tradition of dancing for each house hold.  We were blessed by the dancers who came to the clinic and did a couple of traditional dances.  Local women have been popping by the clinic to present Joanne with hand made items as gifts.  So much generosity for those who have so little, and that is just one of the beautiful things we love and will miss about this place.  Men present me with fish; a portion of their catch, and with a contemptuous grin that suggests “Here mate, You suck at fishing, I feel bad for your family, you better have this coral trout so they don’t starve”,  they hand me some of the most amazing seafood I have eaten. These are generous men and I am honored and humbled by them.

I have loved sharing my stories and experiences on this blog.  The cathartic effect of writing is a relaxation for me.  To take a crap day, and write positively about it has been a training exercise in keeping my glass half full.  And that is what we need to do here.

When we recluse back to our home in Toowoomba, and morph back into our old jobs, our old ways will creep back.  Old ways where we find it easy to feel sorry for ourselves for not being able to get the right brand of bread, or something equally as trivial.  But I sincerely hope that if anything we have learned that there will always be others worse off.  And that by virtue of a genetic lottery, I, for the most part, am privileged beyond anything that I could have ever have imagined when I compare myself with what I have seen here.

I have learned we have to thank each other for the little things.  We need to make each other feel special, because we are.  If someone is a little bit late, that is just not a big deal.  I have learned that a clock is an unnecessary, stress machine, that we dwell on too much.  I hope that when I am back in Toowoomba, I am not ruled by the clock.  I hope to be slow to answer, slow to anger, and slow to condemn.  I hope that my children are not consumed with consumerism.  I hope they learn to value what they have, and that they protect what is dear to them.

I am so happy to be going home.  But so nervous about the culture shock of going home.  But blessed that I will have my people there to talk it out with.  Close up the house, put on ilan music, cook some fish and sop sop, yabber away in Creole, and reminisce about being back in paradise.

For the last time as a family on Darnley (Erub) I say Yawo!!!