Chapter – ??: Heritage

 About six months after I returned from my student exchange, I moved in with my maternal grandparents in Newcastle. Barely months before, my grandad was diagnosed with mesothelioma, which is a form of lung cancer caused by asbestos poisoning. His time on this earth had become a ticking clock, and I was in a position to move up there to help them.

My maternal grandparents I had always had a close relationship. They lived in the Blue Mountains for a time while I was a child, but mostly they lived in Newcastle. My paternal grandparents, however, I did not have the opportunity to get to know in this life.

My paternal grandfather was born in Yorkshire. A Yorkshire man through and through, my aunt and father describe him as hardworking, honest, and a sober man. It is his family line that goes back several generations in the church. His father’s grandmother was stalwart, steadfast, and, from family stories, she desired her children to be strong members of the church as well. There are several branches still active in the church today that trace back to her and her sons, and one of my great uncles was even mentioned in General Conference. That was a funny moment when I, as a young teen, suddenly found people around us from our stake staring at us like, “Hamstead? You’re Hamsteads!” And yes, my dad assured us we were related!

Anyway, somewhere in there my particular line of the family became inactive. I’m not sure on the specifics, but my great grandparents and my grandfather must have had their names on church records, even if they didn’t practice or attend church because, after moving to Australia, home teachers came by and brought my dad and his sister into the church and activity.

My grandfather, as I mentioned, was a hardworking man. Unfortunately, his hard work proved to be the death of him. He died of cancer, most likely mesothelioma due to exposure to asbestos in the munitions factory where he worked. My dad was just seventeen. I have no doubt though, that he was the love of my grandmother’s life. Although she lived for several decades after he passed, she never remarried even though she had the opportunity.

Born to an Irish farming family in Queensland, Australia, my paternal grandmother was stunning and elegant. Photos of her show a tall, slender woman with a lovely face and a sweet smile. When I see pictures of her I can see my sister and myself in her, but while my sister is quite pretty, and I apparently resemble my grandmother quite a bit, I don’t feel like her beauty was passed down to me particularly. I’m definitely not tall and slender!

I never felt like I had much of an opportunity to know her either. By the time I was old enough to really begin building a relationship, she had begun to decline mentally to dementia. During my sixth-grade year, my sister and I went to visit her in Queensland while on one of our school breaks. I remember it was the first time I read Looking For Alibrandi. Not sure why that sticks with me. But I also recall her telling me stories of her life repetitiously. I didn’t understand why she didn’t remember that she told me the stories already.

During my mid-teens, her mental state had declined to a point where my dad had to bring her down to Sydney and place her in a care home. Those visits were hard for me. I think as a teenager being faced with the reality of mortality and life on the decline is a hard pill to swallow. I found it upsetting to see her so frail, and she always seemed so surprised to see that we weren’t little children anymore. It was worse when she was surprised that her own son was a man in his forties.

My grandmother died the beginning of my eleventh grade year. The people who knew her were heartbroken and spoke of a warm, tender, and classy woman. A woman I never had the opportunity to know. However, over the years I have learned about the woman she was before her illness took her mind away.

A few years ago, my dad, with the assistance of his sister, compiled a biography for my grandmother. I keep it on my bookshelf and have read it and think about her life often, especially lately.

My grandmother’s father was an Irishman, and her mother English. Together, they carved out a farm from virgin bushland in Queensland, and were among the pioneers of my homeland. My grandmother’s early life I believe molded her and gave her the quiet strength she held throughout her life. When she was in her twenties, she joined the women’s force to support troops in WWII. It was during this time she met and married her first husband.

I remember once at the end of her life she mentioned seeing her first husband and being frightened. My dad had to explain to her that he hand long since passed, but this was the first time I had heard that she had married before my grandfather. Upon receiving her biography from my dad, I learned why this first husband was never talked about. At first, things were as they should be between a husband and wife, but slowly, he declined. He took to drinking and staying out late. When confronted, he became violent. My grandmother in her journal said that, “He began knocking me about, and that went from bad to worse, because if he hit me, I hit back.” She described having bruises, black eyes, and enduring threats. He would beg her forgiveness, and she would give it. She explained that, “my problem was I had no one to go to, no one to talk to…” Her experience and feelings of isolation is something I can completely relate to. There have been times while I have been in the temple that I have felt her near me, telling me that she knows exactly how I feel and lending me her strength.

Eventually, she discovered his affair and impregnation of another woman. That was enough for her. He had pushed too far. She left him.

Through my own experiences, I feel like I have grown closer to my grandmother since her death. Like her, I suffered from abuse. Not of the physical kind, but the emotional kind. I have no doubt she watched me, aching to intervene and help me escape. The problem was, I had no bruises or black eyes, so no one else could see it. Looking back, I believe she was at my side often, trying to help me remain strong and get through.

She was with me at the temple right before I discovered my husband’s affairs. She was one of several members of my family there promising to lend me their strength in the trial the Lord told me I was about to face. She knew what I would uncover, and she knew how painful it would feel. She has been one of the angels walking at my side throughout all of the wretched business I have had to endure.

My grandmother is a strong woman, and I wish I had known her better in life.

By the time I had hit my late teens, my surviving grandparents were my maternal ones. I had built a close relationship with them and felt a particular closeness to my maternal grandfather; my grandad. He had a beautiful English lilt to his voice, a tone I can still hear ringing in my memory to this day. My maternal grandparents were a little younger than my paternal grandparents, so while my grandmother had served in WWII, my grandad was a child in London. He was never evacuated during the time of the blitz. I believe he lived just outside of the evacuation zone. There is a story though of one night his mother insisted they all sleep downstairs together. That night, the streets were bombed, shaking the house. In the morning they found a fallen heavy beam resting upon my grandad’s bed. Without his mother’s keen intuition, he would have died.

As a young man post WWII, he join the British Navy. He had some great ghost stories from his time in the service, but I don’t remember them in enough detail to share here. During his time in the Navy, he was on shore leave in Goole, Yorkshire. It was there he met a pretty young lass whom he literally picked up on the street! That young woman would become my grandmother.

After he married and they had a child, they migrated to Australia. His first job was in the blast furnace area at the BHP, and from there he got a job with the dredge service on Newcastle Harbour for quite some time before becoming an ambulance driver, a profession my brother has now taken up.

When my mother was in her early teens, missionaries knocked on their door. The story goes that he was almost immediately converted. All my life I remember him having a strong testimony, one that never faltered. He was a beacon of faith for me.

When I was a teen, he was called to the Sydney temple presidency. Prior to being called, doctors had found some shadowing on his lungs. In hindsight, we know that was the first symptoms of mesothelioma, but upon getting the call, the shadowing vanished. Mesothelioma does not just vanish! However, the Lord blessed him with good health and strength as he served for several years in the temple presidency. During this time, I developed a deep love for the temple, and I believe it is directly because of his and my nana’s diligent service.

After his release, the shadowing returned and he was diagnosed. Mesothelioma is a fast acting illness, so he was given a year to live. My mother was quite distressed and worried for her parents. She and Dad talked often about what they could do. After going to a YSA convention over new years and becoming friends with people from their ward and stake, I had the distinct impression that I needed to move in with my grandparents and help them over the final months of my grandad’s life. I was nineteen.

Upon moving in, I arranged to go to TAFE and study travel and tourism nearby. At first, things seemed pretty normal. My grandad was his usual, warm, loving self. We talked about things while Nana fussed about in the kitchen or cleaning. Nana seemed to always be cleaning something! Grandad liked to do things with me, maybe a little more than usual. I signed up for a netball team and he enjoyed coming to watch me. He enjoyed talking with me, and I showed him how to use Google Earth to look at where he grew up and see how it looked nowadays. He would show me things like his sealing ledger and tried to show Nana about the budget and bills. She would always bury her head in the sand and walk away. She and I were both in denial about how serious his health problems were.

I settled in and made some amazing friends with the Young Single Adults in the ward and stake. I truly feel I was blessed with some of the most amazing people and wonderful friends at that moment because of what was to come. To this day, even though I don’t see her often, one of the girls in particular I call one of my best friends. When we see each other, it’s like we’ve never been apart. The families in the ward also welcomed me with arms wide open. I slotted in easily, and for a while I was so happy.

During this time, my friend from my time as an exchange student got engaged. So, I arranged to go to her wedding back in the U.S. and my mum wanted to come with me.

Unfortunately, Grandad’s health declined. I came home one day from TAFE to find an ambulance in the driveway. I had never been more frightened. They took my grandad to the hospital, leaving me with my irate nana. I had to do something, but since I was still quite young and distressed myself, I struggled to pull myself together, but I did manage to send Nana off to the hospital after him.

He came home with an oxygen tank. I hated that thing. The noise it made set my nerves on edge. I would lie awake listening to it to make sure Grandad was still breathing.

The whole ordeal seemed to drive my nana to the edge as well. They had been married for more than fifty years by this point. They had celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in 2002 when I was in year ten. My journal entry for the 14^th of April says that we had spent the weekend at their place and had a party at their favorite restaurant “with heaps of old people Nana and Grandad have known for ages.” They also had me sing, How Do I Live? By LeAnn Rimes. Now I can’t hear that song and not think about them. This was about four years after that anniversary, so my grandparents had been together for most of their lives. I can’t imagine how hard it was for her to watch him slipping away. I don’t blame her for it causing her distress.

Unfortunately, since I was the one in the house, I was served a heavy helping of misplaced frustration and anger. Nana would yell at me for everything and anything. I couldn’t do laundry right, but I needed to do my own laundry, except, I kept getting in the way so she would take over and do it for me anyway. My room was never clean enough. I never got home at the right time. I spent too much time with my friends. I wasn’t dating enough. I ate too little, but I ate too much and I was getting fat. I didn’t know which way was up or what exactly I needed to do, so we would end up fighting. It was upsetting for Grandad, and it broke my heart, but it got so bad I packed everything and left. I had nowhere to go, so with everything I owned crammed into my hatchback, I floated between two of my friends’ houses for the week. Finally, with the intervention of my parents, Grandad convinced me to come home.

Unfortunately, he was only getting worse. So while Nana struggled to help him, I struggled to watch him slowly dying. At nineteen, I was still basically a child in so many ways. It’s important to note that I had a close relationship with my grandad. I adored him. I always expected him to do my temple sealing when the time came, but here I was, watching him slip away and I had no marriage prospects. The worst part was, he really wanted to do my sealing too, but he knew he wasn’t going to have the chance. He had a book full of names of people he had done live sealings for, and he wanted to add my name to that list, but it would never happen. A lost dream is a shattering feeling.

Soon, he ended up needing to stay in the hospital. I found it hard to visit him there because, like with Grandma, facing mortality was a hard pill to swallow, and I definitely didn’t want to face his mortality. I didn’t want to even consider him being gone.

Being just me and Nana at home got rough. Her emotions were everywhere, worse than mine, and I could hardly deal with my own. We would fight and fight, then I’d feel guilty when she would hide in her room and cry. So, I would pray and write in my journal to help me find answers for what to do. The answer was always, “Keep going.”

The time came for Mum and I to head to the U.S. We talked to Grandad about leaving, and he wanted us to go. He knew it would make me happy. So I prayed and begged that he would stay alive for the few weeks we were gone.

On Friday, 18^th August 2006, I wrote: “Grandad died on Sunday here, Saturday in Arizona. It was the strangest feeling… we would have to leave for Australia asap. I was absolutely devastated. A huge jumble of feelings and thoughts overwhelmed me and I didn’t want to deal with Mum asking me what I wanted to do… All I could think of was that maybe I hadn’t had enough faith in my prayers or it was a slight setback…

“I… sat with Mum. We talked about the possibilities (for going back) When Dad called and told Mum Grandad had gone. My heart seemed to just shatter… I knew my grandad was gone and I wasn’t ready to leave that happy place for the harsh reality of everything that was soon to come.”

Grandad died while I was overseas. It made me question my faith and the strength of my prayers, but the reality is, when the Lord says it’s time, nothing can change that. I believe I was exactly where I needed to be when he passed. My host family brought me comfort and happiness, and the distance I needed from the reality of his death to be able to cope.

We flew home right away, and so the journal entries came once we had arrived back in Australia and I had returned to my grandparents’ home, this time, with the rest of my family too.

On Saturday the 19^th, I went to his viewing. My journal entry says, “It took me about ten minutes to even stand in the doorway, then another ten minutes to get close to him. I think it didn’t look like him at all. I cried a lot which was pretty embarrassing. That’s all I really want to say on the day except that I’m glad I got to see him one last time in this lifetime.”

Monday the 21^st was his funeral. Of the funeral, I said, “the whole thing was nice, but sad.” I had been asked to sing, because Grandad loved to hear me sing, but I couldn’t pull myself together enough to do it. I had sung at Grandma’s funeral and I had cried on and off through the whole song, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to get a single note out since I had been so much closer to Grandad.

Something that helped me get through was my friends. I said, “I was so glad (three of my friends) came. When (one friend) showed up, I burst into tears which was embarrassing.” Yes, I hate crying and I find it embarrassing even now if people see me do it.

It took time for Nana and I to settle, in a sense. On Sunday, 17^th September 2006 I wrote: “After church I had a meeting with Bishop at 1:30. We talked about how Nana is driving me nuts and I hated feeling the constant resentment toward her because she’s always putting me down. We also talked about how she isn’t coping and how she just paces up and down the house and cleans constantly and ceases to function like a normal human being anymore, and how every now and then she says she just wants to die because there’s nothing left for her, and the time she was pacing the house and startled calling out, “Where are you, Grandad?” and how that was really distressing.”

My bishop was perfect for me during that time. He listened and saw how hard it was for me, a teenager, to deal with my grief and my grandmother’s all at once. He gave me a blessing that reminded me to love my nana and serve her, even though it was hard to do with her grieving and taking it out on me.

It’s interesting because, upon reading what I wrote was said in the blessing, I felt that the blessings given then are repeated and are relevant to me now. They were:

·       I was blessed to feel relief from loneliness

·       The Lord is aware of the desires of my heart and wants me to be happy and have those desires.

·       Although Nana may not appreciate what I’m doing now, she will eventually, either in this life or the next.

The first two are things I have felt in the temple a great deal lately, so to find them in my journal entry from thirteen years ago was rather timely. The last one, well, Nana is still kicking and I love her so much. Although that time was hard for both of us and we struggled to be in the same space, I appreciate that time we had together. Our abrasive relationship rubbed the edges off and helped us love each other deeply. I don’t know if she appreciates all I did, but I know Grandad does, I have felt him tell me so from the other side of the veil. I was little more than a kid, barely an adult, and I had to deal with some very hard issues. I didn’t handle them perfectly, not even close, but I made it through with the help of wonderful friends, family, and a bishop who was put in at the right place and time. I can see that nothing and no one placed in my life at that time was a coincidence.

I still miss my grandad, but I feel him with me often, especially when I go to the temple. He loved the temple, so I have no doubt he enjoys visiting there with me. In fact, I heard his voice when I visited before I discovered my husband’s infidelity. When the Lord told me I had the strength to get through what was to come, I said I didn’t know if I did. And so He said, “Then let them share their strength.” Right away I felt four people around me. Three women, and then my grandad’s voice, clear as day with that English lilt said, “Katie, I’m here.” Yet again, I embarrassed myself by crying my eyes out. The way he spoke my name was exactly how I remembered it. I believe he was the one who spoke because I could recognize his voice anywhere. One of the others present was my grandmother, but I am still not sure who the other two women were. I think one was possibly my great-great grandmother Mary Ellen Monks. I have felt bonded to her for a while now. One day I will know, and that day I will hold them close and thank them for being with me through such heartbreaking times.

My time living with my grandparents came to a close at the end of 2006. I had finished my TAFE diploma and found a job back in Sydney. I would be moving back south and turning to a new chapter. Although the grief for my grandad would linger well into the following year, I knew he was happy.

I have come from so many strong and faithful people. I am proud of my ancestry, the Yorkshiremen, the Irish, the Londoners, the stoic, the pioneers, the migrants, the soldiers, and most importantly, the faithful. All have come to a place in me. I have a great lineage, and a heritage of steadfast faith to live up to. In those who have come before me I find a beacon of light to move forward. They are with me always, even if I cannot see them. They lend me their strength when I feel like I can’t fight another battle and lift me up when I feel like hope is lost. For some reason they are standing with me always and helping me push onward. In me, they find hope, and in them I find the courage to keep pressing on.