Mothering for life

As Mother's Day approaches, Lindsay Wright pays tribute to a woman dedicated to home, family and the occasional whack with a jug cord.

- Lindsay Wright

My mother died recently, aged 92.

“A good innings,” people said, as though she'd spent her life playing cricket.

In reality, almost all of her life had been involved with homemaking and child-rearing. That was her career and she was good at it. She had been rewarded with four children, a slew of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was matriarch to dozens.

She began as a bush girl from the forests of the West Coast, the daughter, sister and friend of teams of bushmen. Men who felled tall trees with axe and saw before the clatter of chainsaws filled the forest.

Vegetables were harvested from her parents’ huge garden to supplement the venison, wild pork, eel and whitebait that they lived on. In quiet times, my grandfather would take his gold pan and disappear into the bush for days. He'd return, heralded by barking dogs, with Marmite jars full of gold dust. Redeemed on a rare trip to town, the gold bought grocery essentials, lollies for the kids and a beer or two (actually, several beers) for the menfolk.