Abalinx 8 May 2022
It’s 10.40 pm in Victoria. I am sitting in the kitchen beneath our parents’ home reflecting. It has been five months since (Kaliopi) the matriarch of the Adamis family joined (Vasili) the Patriarch. I am now reflecting on the past 72 years of the challenges of life. Upstairs is where they lived and entertained family and friends. Downstairs was the garage, another kitchen and an area where they held their bbqs. LAST NIGHT AT THE OLDIES
There many memories and yet, it is of interest to note that within 13 years (four kids) had somehow saved enough to purchase a home in Windsor from an Italian friend. Many years later they purchased their last home, again from an Italian couple who like our parents made Australia home.
As adults we have learnt that the choices we made in life defined who we were no matter our upbringing. I look toward my front and see a window above a sink, with a oven and stove to the right, a bar fridge and microwave to the left table and chairs an a bar heater keeping the bitter cold trying to enter.
The scene takes me back to our humble peasant agricultural beginnings in an ancient land at a time when the world was recovering from much bloodshed and strife. My mind takes a detour meandering from one neurotransmitter to another, reminding me of my earlier youth as a child of four.
I remember huddled around this fire that burnt brightly in the dark casting shadows on the rock wall and the blanket that was masquerading as a door. The fire was contained within a few large rocks upon which sat a large pot that gurgled and hissed as it boiled away merrily.
My brother Phillip who was three sat beside me, as we both watched our father making animal shadows on the wall and the blanket. We were mesmerised, laughing, giggling and shouting for more. Mum could hear us as she was in the next room where we all slept huddled together keeping warm against the howling wind outside. The wind would find the cracks in the wall where the clay and straw mud had disintegrated and it would rush in howling.
Life was very simple then and utilities such as running water, electricity, telephone, television, cars and other modern appliances or vehicles of transport did not exist in the village. Still Mum and Dad did their best in raising us during those turbulent and chaotic years. As children we could pitter patter and even waddle down to the local town square to play with other kids of our age.
Children were a welcome sight as it was a sign that people were trying to put the past behind them and trying to improve their quality of life. For many like our parents, they chose to leave the village and travel to a land where few Greeks had gone. Only one brave soul (Great uncle Peter Morfis) had left the village for the Great South land during the Great Depression and somehow made his way to a place we all now call home. AUSTRALIA.
The challenges our parents faced were numerous and best left for another day to be written for now the joyride conducted by my mind’s neurotransmitters have brought me back to my current location, under the home of our dear departed parents. Yes, I would like to think that they are proud of their kids and that their struggles and decisions they made in life were correct and that they did the best they could.
This will be my last night here as the house will soon no longer be ours to visit. It is therefore important to keep a record of those last few hours remembering the good times. Life is what it is and we make the best of it. In closing, I would like to think my boys will have good memories of their dad and his struggles to raise them alone.
Cheerio for now, stay strong always and never give up for the world is still a beautiful place.
Peter
Peter Adamis is a (not for profit) Journalist/Commentator. He is a retired Australian military serviceman and an Industry organisational & Occupational (OHS) & Training Consultant whose interests are within the parameters of domestic and international political spectrum. He is an avid blogger and contributes to domestic and international community news media outlets as well as to local and Ethnic News. He holds a Bachelor of Adult Learning & Development (Monash), Grad Dip Occupational Health & Safety, (Monash), Dip. Training & Assessment, Dip Public Administration, and Dip Frontline Management. Contact via Email: [email protected]