Reunion

The years that divided us, didn't seem so long. The memories of our childhood selves seemed to be secondary, we connected instantly, but it was a different sort of connection than what we had as schoolgirl friends.
The years had changed us - they had to have.

The instant recognition was amazing, she still looked as I remembered, I would have known her anywhere.

We've both experienced many of life's trials and tribulations and with love and support, thankfully, we've survived.

She talked to me of things that had been set aside, pushed back, to a private little compartment in the back of her memory.
As she told me her stories, I wept. It was hard to absorb, I didn't feel sorry for her, she wouldn't want my pity or anyone else's, she's far too strong and proud for that.
What I felt at first was a complete admiration and then thankfulness that she trusted me enough to relive all the darkness she has endured. She wanted me to know, she wanted me to understand.
I felt truly honored.
The sheer fact that she felt comfortable sharing with me the struggle and the pain, things that she never talks about with anyone and has only recently allowed herself to feel strong enough to go back, remember, deal with and accept as being a part of where she's come from and the path she's walked to become the compassionate, loving, confident woman she has blossomed into, despite or maybe because of it.

The warmth, love and respect, I felt from her was tangible. I was so afraid she'd be guarded, wondering why on earth I had gone to so much trouble to find her.
What did I want? What could she give me? She thought that door from her past had well and truly been closed.
I wanted so much to assure her that I was genuine, that my quest to find her was out of love, a love I had held onto for at least half of my life.
You see, she was my living breathing guardian angel. She tucked me up under her wing at a time in my life that was very difficult. She excepted me, she protected me, she loved me, when in her own life she was dealing with issues of her own - I never knew!

Knowing what I know now, I wasn't sure how to feel? Why hadn't she told me back then?
After a lot of thought, I now realise that it was self preservation.
When she was with me or around my family she was protected. She didn't have to worry about labels, judgment, or the fear of seeing her as anyone other than who she was. She could just be herself - as you know, big family - 7 kids, she had become just one of the brood. She loved being at our house, she loved the activity, the laughter, the distraction, the love. She wanted my Mum and Dad to adopt her. What's one more, right?
She had no clue, in my heart, I already had, we were soul sisters.
Even though she's a good 12 months younger than me. I looked up to her, I admired her, I loved her.
I am sure she had no idea, how much she meant to me, but she has never been far from my thoughts and had never forgotten her friendship, hence my very long, brick wall banging 20 odd year search.

I am happy to say, she has found love and a safe place in her life. Or should I say, it found her. She apparently wasn't an easy catch. She is more than content with her lot. She has so much love surrounding her from her adorable husband and gorgeous children. They are without doubt, her world, her everything, she doesn't need anyone else in her life, they fulfill her.
Her cup runneth over with contentment. She doesn't let many outsiders into her little tightknit world, but now considers me family, so that is the best possible outcome I could have hoped for.
She's has become a very strong, independent woman, although still doesn't trust many people and I can understand that resolve, knowing what I know now.

Be assured she has come out the other side strong, confident, motivated and hopeful. She has dealt with the skeletons of her past and is only looking forward to a much brighter future.
She recently found out that her eldest daughter is expecting her first child.
To say she is excited about the up coming arrival would be an understatement to say the least.
She is so ready to bring in the next generation with a clean slate and more love than one child will know what to do with.
I am ecstatic for her and love to hear the excitement in her voice and see her face light up when she talks about becoming 'MaMaine'.

That really sums up our amazing weekend reunion. It all went way too quickly as you can probably imagine, but it definitely won't be the last time we get together. It's my turn next. I just have to find the time to get away, but hopefully it won't take another 25 years!

What can I say. It surpassed all my expectations and I am truly thankful for her acceptance of what must have seemed very a strange quest.

The year that was.

Now that the busy Christmas - New Year craziness is thankfully a soon to be distant memory, I thought I would try and do a post before we got too much further into 2009.

We dealt with a lot of changes in '08, starting with Jessica's engagement to Ray on New Years Eve - total shock to say the least, but 12 months on, I am more comfortable with her decision, especially knowing they're in no hurry to set a wedding date.

Then in June Joe and I both gave up our jobs that we'd been in for years to dive into the unknown and start a whole new life far far away from everything we know and everyone we love. I never imagined being this adventurous at this time of my life.
I use that word very loosely.
We are now 6 months into our new way of life and to tell you the truth, I don't know if it's getting any easier. The relentless issues we have to deal with everyday (mainly staff) is at times a little overwhelming and unfortunately I must admit, a little hard for me to handle at times (most of the time).
I'm actually going through a stage at the moment, where I think it's all too much. I'm looking for a much needed (for my sanity and everyone around me) break away from here.
We haven't had a day off since the beginning of November and we've just been through the busiest trading time of the year with Christmas and New Year and with getting out of my bed at the ungodly hour of 3 o'clock everyday, when most sane people are in their deepest sleep and having their sweetest dreams - I'm understandably, just exhausted!!!
There have been moments of asking myself 'why' over the past few days, actually, I think it's been a little bit of depression if I'm to be completely truthful which has led to the agreement between Joe and myself that we will make a more concerted effort to take some time out for ourselves.
It's just complete madness trying to keep up the pace we've set and to make it worse, I am married to the original 'energiser bunny' who just doesn't stop.
I have no idea where he gets his energy, let alone his enthusiasm to keep the momentum going day in, day out.
So we'll see if some time out makes a change to my mental state of mind.

On a lighter note and a much happier tone, Jayden has decided to move up here with us.
I don't under the present circumstances know exactly if it's a wise decision on his behalf, but he hasn't been handling being on his own too well.
He lost his job late October working for a boat builder at Hope Island, he had been there for over 12 months and really enjoyed his work, his boss and his work mates.
Unfortunately it was a sign of our present economic times, luxury items are always the first thing to get cut out of the budget, hence the lack of work available.
He got a job working as a labourer for a friend of James' who has a rendering/house painting business, but was barely working because of all the bad weather Brisbane has been experiencing. He's been getting progressively worse, worrying about his bills and his future so he decided to head up our way, regroup, then put his feelers out to see what he thinks he'd like to do with his life.
I'm extremely relieved to know that he knew he could turn to us in his time of need and now we can start getting him back on track. He's happy to work here with us until he finds something that's more in line with what he wants to do. I know he just isn't sure exactly what that is himself yet!
He did fly back to the coast the 29th so that he could spend New Years with his friends and for Summer Field Days, then he's flying back here on the 6th.
We go to Rocky on Tuesday to pick him up. I spoke to him yesterday, he told me he was having a really good time, but he was looking forward to coming back, so that's positive.

Jessica & Ray weren't able to get away to be here with us for Christmas because they didn't have anyone who could look after their pets - bummer!!!
A real menagerie they have going on at their house!
So it's actually the very first Christmas that we didn't celebrate together.
I have had to come to terms with it, but I still don't like it and hopefully it will be a rarity rather than the norm.

My search for Charmaine:

For the longest time, I have been on and off searching for an old school friend from High School.
She was a very special part of my life for a few years and I often wondered what had become of her. I wanted to find her so badly, to thank her for her undying friendship at a time of my life that wasn't particularly easy.
I've tried many times to find her over the years, but I just kept hitting brick walls.
The first time I tried, I looked up the White Pages to see if her family still lived at the address I remembered when we were in the throws of friendship and to my delight, they did.
With out even thinking I picked up the phone and nervously, but excitedly told the man who answered who I was and why I was ringing.
Unfortunately, he wasn't as responsive to my request as I was naively hoping for and with serious disappointment was told that he had no idea where his daughter was and that he couldn't help me.
I obviously wasn't expecting the outcome that I got and it made me think of why he was so cold and uncaring about the whereabouts of his child.
I tried to remember the dynamics of her family back then, remembering that I was only 14 when we met and at that age I would have had so many other concerns that occupied my teenage brain than the interactions of my best friends family, but thinking about it and looking back I did remember that she had a step mother, who had had at least one child, maybe two to Charmaine's father and that there was some tension between the original children, Charmaine and at least two brothers, Steven and Tom and the new wife. When I would visit her house, there was a coldness and detachment that lingered.
I'm not sure of the circumstances surrounding the marriage, I think it was after the death of Charmaine's mother, but I'm not sure how she passed or how long it was before her father remarried.
Then I tried to think of the last time I had contact with her to see if I could remember any details that would give me clues as to her location.
I remembered the last time I saw her. I know we had lost contact for a few years after I left school and got a job and my memories after that point are very vague.
I can't recall who organised the get together, but I do remember that I was 19, I had just starting going out with Joe and I thought it would be a good opportunity for him to meet Charmaine.
So we drove out to Hastings to where she was living. There was a cute little blonde haired girl around 18 mths to 2 years old, playing out in the yard.
I can't remember how long we stayed for or what we talked about while we were there, but I do remember coming away thinking how differently the directions our lives had taken.
Here she was, my gorgeous looking, funny and very confident best friend, a full blown Mum, so gentle and loving to her child, a real little mother with all that entails, but so young, forced to so suddenly grow up, mature and become unselfish to this new little life that depended on her to do just that. Then there was me in complete contrast, I was just in a new relationship, still living at home with my parents and my biggest concern was, what I would wear on my next date with my new boyfriend.
A few years later I was thinking about her again and obviously enough time had passed and the memory of the last time I spoke with her father had diminished and I was obviously feeling optimistic about what his response would be to my request this time....no such luck!!
I did feel for the very briefest of moments at one stage though that he was almost ready to tell me something, but then quickly changed his mind and again clammed up professing to know nothing about his daughters whereabouts.
Bugger!!
It was back to the drawing board.
My next attempt at finding her was through the website "Friends Reunited".
I did a search on her name, but of course she wasn't there. Her brother Tom however was, so I sent him an email asking for any information he could give me.
I have never heard back from him.
A couple of years later, I sat down and wrote a letter to her Dad. I can't even remember what I said in it or what I thought would ever come of it.
I actually didn't expect a response after my other attempts at contact with him.
To my complete surprise and delight about 2 months later I got a letter in the mail. It was from Mrs Tremewen, Charmaine's step mother. She wrote to tell me that Charmaine's father had in fact passed away and the only information she had was a surname of either Jenkin or Jenkins and that she thought she was living in the Port Melbourne area.
It wasn't much to go on and at the end of the day it didn't help me very much, the name was too common to be a good enough lead, or so I thought at the time.
It turned out to be just the piece of information I needed.
I remember feeling very sad that there had never been any reconciliation between Charmaine and her father and wondered at the time if she even knew he had died.

Joining the 'Friends Reunited' site did however lead me to be reacquainted with another friend from school, who knew Charmaine's family quite well and was friends with one of her brothers.
After corresponding for a while, I asked him if he knew the whereabouts of the family and being an ex cop he felt he had the skills to do a little detective work on my behalf. (He'll get a laugh out of that statement)!
I gave him the information I had, which really wasn't much, including the surname her step mother had given me in the letter. He came up with a new piece of information that I didn't have and that was the surname Flood.
I don't know how he got it and wasn't sure how accurate it was either.
As it turns out, he found both of her daughters without actually realising it. He found a Tremewen girl and a Jenkins girl, but assumed for some reason that they were cousins. He then sent an email to one of them, but never received a response. The trail again was becoming very cold - good going Mr Detective!

I recently joined Facebook, after resisting that particular site for the past couple of years, only because I wasn't really sure about how it worked and because I'd heard it was a university orientated site that kept past and present students in touch with each other.
My first search I typed in was for Charmaine Tremewen- no luck.
My next was for Charmaine Flood, bingo, I had a match. The profile photo looked nothing like I remembered her to look like, so I wasn't very confident that I had the right person.
I was right, I didn't. I got a response back from Charmaine Flood, telling me she had always been a Flood and that she wasn't who I was looking for.
The next person I contacted was Cara Tremewen. This surname is not that common, so I thought she had to at the very least be some sort of relative. No. I got a very sweet email back from Cara telling me she didn't know who Charmaine was, but wished me luck with my search for her.
I felt for some reason really close to finding something, or someone who could tell me something.
I just didn't realise how close.
My next email was to Tara'a Tremewen. I explained, once again, who I was, why I was contacting her and that I would be excitedly waiting for her response.
With Facebook, I was finding the responses to be fairly quick, so when I hadn't heard anything back from Tara'a, after about 24 hours, I tried one more person, it was Chantell Jenkins, who I found on Tara'as friends list.
I thought the coincidence was too big not to be something. Two of the only three names I had and thinking it was actually a niece - I once again did my spiel, this time to Chantell, giving her a little more information than I had given anyone else, telling her that she was the last lead I had and that I had nowhere else to look if she didn't know anything.
The very next day, finally, I read the words I had been searching for for the longest time.
It read:
Charmaine is my mother.......The relief, the excitement, the pure sense of joy those four little words brought to me at that still, solitary moment was overwhelming.
Jayden happened to be looking over at me as I was reading it. (I must have been smiling) I looked up at him looking at me and he said, what?
I think by the end of it, he was sorry he asked! I went on and on about all the things I've just written.
He was very sweet though and listened intently to my story and he was genuinely happy for me and my win.

So that folks is how my year ended. As usual and I don't know why I am constantly surprised by it, but life keeps throwing those curve balls and this years events have been if nothing else expectedly unexpected.

Other highlights of my year were:
I had a visit from my parents, my brother arrived home safe and sound after spending 6 months in Iraq, my husband and kids are happy and healthy and beautiful, we've been kept safe on the roads for all our long trips back and forth to the coast. I have special, loving, caring friends who without them I couldn't survive and I have high hopes for this new year, that I have opportunities and experiences ahead that will give me joy, make me strong, challenge me and hopefully I will survive them all to tell the tale.

Oh joy, aren't you lucky!!