There so much history here for me and there is something very beautiful about coming back to this place; that feeling of home. Open air, old things, old humans and familiar love.
=this is the view from #nannaandfranks backyard=
If there's one thing i know about family- it's that it's complicated.
Different personalities connected through blood, excepted to love one another. We can't always get it right. My parents couldn't keep it together, although they may have tried. My father- his affair with his secretary, when i was fifteen. My mum- her Nigerian scam fake lover situation. i needed an example and Frank was it. Although i didn't realise it until the night before he died.
=#nannaandfrank out the front of franks shed=
Nanna and frank had six daughters and when the first grandchild came to earth he thought he was too young to be called grandfather so we always called him Frank...he was grand.
Frank grew up in one house, he never left this place. He never went overseas; in fact he never left Victoria. He said "If you want to see the best view in the world, you just need to stand on mt blowhard and look north." Frank died two years ago now, and i know he'll be remembered for what he did rather than what he never did.
=the old fire station across the road from #nannaandfranks house=
Nanna and Frank taught me that relationships take dedication and forgiveness and hope.
Frank made jam, from berries he grew. He was a skilled blacksmith; made his daughters a swing, that i still use when i visit. He was never too busy to spend time with a friend or help in any way he could. The post office run out of their house for years, they taught ballroom dancing classes together. Frank volunteered for the local five service and a helpline for people suffering depression. He could re-sight the great Australian poets and serviced all the windmills in his district. When we were little ladies he would pick roses from his garden, rap them up in tinfoil and hand us a little bouquet when we would visit. Every year without fail, he would personally deliver a real christmas tree to our house. In my young mind he became the smell of pine.
=the truck in their backyard=
He never talked about all the things he did, never boosted about how much he knew. He was content to sit with his family, while we ate the soup he'd just made and waited patiently for his famous jelly slice. i loved that stuff.
=Frank's father invented a type of rubber used on the wheels of a horse and cart, one of his family's cart's is on exhibition at Sovereign Hill, in Ballarat.=
Frank was all deaf toward the end but was still altogether in the head. I was thankful for that because that night, as he lay dying, i said "thank you for being a wonderful grandfather Frank" and he still knew who i was. I took a cloth and run it under the tap and gently wiped the sweat off his forehead. Afterwards Nanna said that was the very best thing i could do for him.
=They still chop wood because they can't cook if they don't have fire.=
The next morning i was waiting for mum to fly in, my aunties has left and i was the only one at the hospital, in the room, alone with the body of Frank. It was the strangest thing, the light coming in through the window and i swear i saw him breathe. But i didn't... i'd never seen so many people at one funeral before. He had influenced so many, loved so many. Frank is the greatest human i have known. And i am thankful for him, for family.
"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?" 'It's a Wonderful Life'
i see this as a rich heritage and i hope my cousins and i can always come back to this place for that familiar love.
inanystillmoment@gmail.com
photos by mish on hasselbald
