Extraordinary Mother

Roland Rocchiccioli — Extraordinary Mother

Thank you very much. Well, surprisingly, for somebody who works in the theatre as I do, and for so long, I don’t believe in prizes for acting, although I was watching the Oscars the other night and I thought I wouldn’t mind winning one of those. That could be quite interesting. I thought, ​“There’s probably an Oscar for some actress in my late mother, Biria,” because she was a truly remarkable woman, a woman before her time, and she was a great influence on my life, along with several other women, but particularly Biria.

She was born in 1911, and, in 1916, she and my four aunts and my uncle were deemed by the Kalgoorlie Children’s Court to be in moral danger. And, they were taken away from their mother, and the girls were sent to the Salvation Army home in Cottesloe, and my uncle was sent to the Swan Boys’ Home in Middle Swan. And, my mother and her brother never met again, ever in their lives. It was an extraordinary time, and she talked a lot about it, and I think she was probably dysfunctional as a result of it.

Certainly, her parenting skills left something to be desired, but that’s probably to be expected, because she was in the home for 13 years, during which time no one ever hugged her, which I think is a really telling comment. There were 100 girls and about six officers in the Salvation Army home. And, the officers wore white starched aprons with ​“All for Jesus” embroidered across the front.

My mother told me a story about how she once was accused of breaking another girl’s bottle of lavender water, and she had to go and see the matron about it. And, she said, ​“Until the day I die, I shall never forget Matron Robina Pratt. She called me a thief and a liar. As a punishment, they locked me in the officers’ bathroom for a week, except for school. I had a mattress on the floor, and they brought my meals on a tray.” She said, ​“I didn’t break that bottle of lavender water. And, I just hoped the little bitch who did rots in hell.” [audience chuckle]

At the age of 18– 16, I beg your pardon– 16, my mother was put into service, and she was sent to a home just around the corner from the Salvation Army. And it was Mrs. Smith in Cotter Street. My mother had it confused for years. She thought it was Mrs. Cotter in Smith Street, but it wasn’t, so we finally sorted that out. So, she went to Mrs. Smith in Cotter Street, and Mrs. Smith’s widowed brother-in-law lived there with her. He was about 30, and he worked on the wharf. And, he had two small children, and he used to pay my mother a shilling a week if she would let him touch her.

And, years later, she said, ​“You know, it’s funny, I had no idea what was going on. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t think he got his money’s worth.” [audience laughter] So, she did have this extraordinary sense of humor which really carried her through her life. We had a very rocky relationship.

My mother had four marriages– three marriages, four children, and it was a very rocky relationship. And, my childhood was blighted by domestic violence, all sorts of things which are, in fact, recorded in the book, Be Home Before Dark. But, eventually, my mother came to live with me, and for 10 years, I was her carer here in Melbourne.

And, I was showering her one morning, and she said to me, ​“What’s this?” And, I said, ​“Oh, darling, that looks like a hernia.” She said, ​“Oh, really?” I said, ​“Yes, we should go to the doctor tomorrow, and we’ll have a look at that.” So, we took her to the doctor, and he touched her liver, and she went ​“Ahh” and he said, ​“Roland, I think this is more serious than we might suspect. She needs to see an oncologist.” So, I said, ​“Okay, well, Bob Miller is a friend of mine. We’ll ring him, make an appointment, we’ll take her there tomorrow.”

So, we went on the Wednesday. On the Wednesday night, he phoned me at about 8 o’clock to say, ​“Roland, I wanted to find out what this is, because I think it’s serious, and I think the results have just come back. It is indeed cancer. She has liver cancer and secondary bowel cancer. She has six months, maybe three at the most.” But, I said, ​“Okay, well, where do we go from here?” And, I talked gibberish for a bit. And, he said, ​“Look, don’t worry, I’ll ring you tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock.” So, indeed, next morning, he rang me. I have no recollection of what happened between him hanging up and 8 o’clock the next morning, but he called the next morning to say that everything was in place, the palliative care nurses were on their way, and that everything would be taken care of.

And, suddenly, Biria’s cancer developed this whole life of its own. And, it took over, and it had a momentum that was impossible to stop. And, it was 17 weeks before she died. And, it was an extraordinary time. For 17 weeks, I didn’t go to bed. I slept on a couch in her sitting room, because she had a sitting room, bedroom, and dressing room, and a bathroom at the back of the house. And, eventually, we had to put her on the dexamethasone, which is the drug, and, of course, the morphine, which is what they use. And, the dexamethasone kicks in, and, of course, it renders patients immobile.

The fabric of the strength of the muscle disappears, and, of course, they start to shuffle, and they find it difficult to walk. And, Biria said to me, after three or four weeks of this, she said, ​“Why can’t I walk?” And, I said, ​“Well, darling, it’s the drugs you’re taking.” She said, ​“Well, do I need them?” And, I said, ​“Yes, you do.” She said, ​“Am I ill?” And, I said, ​“Yes, very.” She said, ​“Well, what’s wrong?” And, I said, ​“Well, as they told me to say, darling, you have cancer.” She said, ​“What?” I said, ​“Cancer.” She said, ​“Are you sure?” And, I said, ​“Yes.” She said, ​“Well, I don’t believe you. I’m 95. Why would it take so long to come?” [audience chuckle]

And, that was the end of the conversation about the cancer. Then, I heard her talking with her doctor, Bruce, who had come to see her. And, she said, ​“Am I ill?” And, he said, ​“Yes, you are.” And, she said, ​“Can you do anything for me?” And, he said, ​“No, I’m sorry.” She said, ​“So, I’m going to die, am I?” He said, ​“Yes, I’m afraid you are.” She said, ​“So, it’s only really a matter of time.” ​“Yes, it is.”

So, a couple of days later, I was showering her, and, again, was drying her, and she said, ​“Goodbye.” And, I said, ​“Goodbye? You’re going for a walk or something?” She said, ​“I wish I could.” She said, ​“No, I’ll be 96 in about two weeks. And, after that, I’m going to fly away.” I said, ​“Oh, well, we’ll wait and see, darling.”

Well, on the Thursday before the Friday morning when she died, I was turning her in the bed, and it had been a very difficult time. She was at the stage now where she was calling out all through the night, ​“Water, water.” And, it was a very disturbing time for me, because I became– unfortunately, I became the pain in her life. And, whenever I touched her, there was a terrible ​“Ahh” always and she hadn’t spoken much.

But, on the Thursday afternoon at about 3 o’clock, I made her comfortable in the bed, and she opened these extraordinarily piercing, cornflower-blue eyes and said, ​“Thank you.” And, those were the last words she ever spoke. So, she closed her eyes. By about 6 o’clock that evening, the breathing was becoming labored and difficult, and so, I rang the hospital, and they said, ​“Don’t worry, Roland, it’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s much worse for you than it is for her. Just give her another morphine shot, and she’ll be fine.” So, throughout the night, I gave her morphine shots. The following morning at 6 o’clock, when I went to rouse her, she was clearly semi-conscious.

So, I called the palliative care nurses immediately. They said, ​“We’re on our way.” So, they came, and they had this wonderful routine that they deal with you first, then they deal with the patient. They sat me down and said, ​“Roland, this is it. This is the final stretch. I imagine Biria will be gone by the end of today.” And, I’m not sure that I really believed them, so, I accepted that, and they prepared her, and they put her on the morphine drip, and I rang the priest, and I rang her doctor. And so, the doctor came at 10 o’clock, and he said, ​“She’ll be gone by the end of the day.”

And so, he went, and I sat with her. I put Oscar, her dog, on the bed, because she loved Oscar. We have four dogs. And so, Oscar got on the bed with her, and, at one second to 11, she was alive. And, at one second past 11, she was gone. There was this imperceptible movement of her head, and, suddenly, the life force was gone, and Biria was no more, except in my heart. And, the priest was about to arrive, and he arrived at about two minutes past 11. And, I said, ​“She’s already dead.” He said, ​“How long ago?” And, I said, ​“Oh, two minutes.” And, he said, ​“Well, as far as I’m concerned, she’s still alive,” because a Catholic priest is not allowed to give the final rites to a dead person, only to the living. So, he came in, and he gave Biria the last rites, and Oscar was on the bed, and Oscar was licking her hands, trying to wake her up. It was quite an interesting thing. And, I’d already put the other dogs on the bed, because the vet said, ​“You must let the other three dogs smell her as well, so that they know what’s happened.”

And, as the priest went to anoint her with the holy oil, Oscar actually flew at him. Now, he’s a little old dog about 11 years of age who never does anything. So, the priest finished what he was doing, and then he went. And, then, I sat there with her. But, there was just still one thing I had to do. Because Biria had said to me some months before, she said, ​“I don’t care if you have to break my jaw, but I don’t want to die with my mouth open.” So, I got this huge scarf that we’d all organized. It was an aqua organza scarf that she had. And, I tied it around and tied this huge bow on her head. And, I said to Biria, ​“If you could see what you look like, you just look hysterical.” So, I sat there talking with her for a little while.

And, it was one of those crisp, clear, autumnal mornings in Melbourne. And, it was absolutely silent except for the birds in the birdbath outside Biria’s bedroom door, which opened out into the garden. And, I sat there saying my final farewells. And, it actually occurred to me that I was sitting there– I was now an orphan. My father was dead, and, of course, now Biria was gone, and there was nobody else in the world.

And, I’m not a great believer in epiphanies and those seminal moments. I think we career through our lives doing what we can and making the best of it. But, I suddenly thought, ​“This is extraordinary.” This was a woman who wanted to live to be 100 because she wanted to get the telegram from the Queen, so she could give me something that only she could give to me. So, I sat there and I thought about this, and we chatted away, and she was lying there, and I rang the undertakers, and they said they’d come and pick her up. And, I said, ​“No, it’s fine. Can we leave it until tomorrow? Can you come tomorrow?” They said, ​“Whatever you like.” And, the truth was that I was absolutely terrified that she wasn’t dead, and that I might send her to the crematorium and still be alive.

But, curiously, when I talked to my doctor about it, he said, ​“It’s not unusual.” He said, ​“Some people try and cover their parents with a blanket because they feel the warmth of the body leaving. And, they try and warm them up again. They say, ​‘Oh, mom or dad’s cold. Can I have a blanket?’ ” So, I sat there with Biria.

It actually occurred to me that after wanting to be 100, I thought, ​“Is that really too much? Is that really more than she should have asked for?”

And, it occurred to me that I actually made the decision that I really don’t give a fat rat’s clacker what anyone thinks about me anymore, because Biria brought me in and I took her out. And, I think that taking someone to their death is probably the most intimate thing you can do. And, after that, you can never be ordinary again. Thank you very much.