This year, my worst fear came true. I was 36, a mother of two very young children, a wife, the Director of a successful nonprofit organization, about to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a life coach, and BAM! I was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on my kidney. Let me tell you how one of my biggest fears coming true, ended up becoming one of my greatest blessings.
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25th of April 2013, Anzac Day dawn service on the Kokoda trail is a moment in time that I’ll never forget. The entire 9-day journey up into the mountains of Papua New Guinea was a struggle, but in that one moment, coming down from Brigade Hill, I knew who I needed to be, where I needed to go and what was required from me to get there...
My story started when I was 15 years-old. I was a very young 15 year-old , coming at the world with wonder, wide eyed and not at all street wise. I was pulled out of my hometown, my country New Zealand and moved over to Australia with my Mother.
I was only given short notice of this move. I’m sure it felt like the right thing for my Mother as she had family in Australia and my sister was already dancing in the Australian ballet, but for me it felt like I was ripped out of a just beginning sense of self, away from friends and knowing who I was. It felt like the plug had been pulled and I was watching myself swirling down the drain. I don’t think I had ever been a deeply happy child, but at that time I totally shut down and I stopped talking for 6 months. I am the youngest of 3 girls. I was born in 1984 with a cleft palate; a rare birth defect caused by genetics or chemical poisoning or as google says: ‘a congenital split in the roof of the mouth’. In my home town of Coffs Harbour there are many Banana plantations that continually spray pesticides and fertiliser, unfortunately when my mum was pregnant with me these chemicals got into the town water supply and are what most likely caused my cleft palate.
Growing up was tough with this condition. By the time I was 12, I had experienced over 25 surgeries... Nearly dying was the best thing that ever happened to me. In March 2009, I had a motorcycle accident in Thailand. I fractured my skull, my spine, my ankle, my knee, my shoulder, my elbow, broke three ribs, perforated my lungs and had a brain hemorrhage. All in the middle of nowhere, deep in the jungle.
How did the day start? Well where do I begin? In Phuket, where my mate Dave and I hired bikes and hit the road. Dave is my best man and a great guy. He has a big heart and a soft soul. Dave looks like an old movie star and has the same style. We wanted to get as far away from civilization as possible. My name is not legal but it’s mine.
My Dad left when I was 6 years old and remarried a Papua New Guinean woman and that led to the journey of my names. I was the eldest son in a family of boys and didn’t grow up with my Dad being there. I saw him for a week when I was 14, but other than that I didn’t get to know who he was until just before my 21st birthday. As a young man in New Zealand, I had always wanted for some reason to become a Police Officer with the Northern Territory Police in Australia. I did all the medical checks etc and interviews and was accepted. I was working as a Prison Officer at the time until the training course began. One evening while working in a prison I was set upon by several inmates and beaten with wooden legs from a table. I was dragged into a cell and told I was going to be killed..
Kendra wrote a brave story about her journey through loving someone with a mental illness in "Made Beautiful by Scars- real women's stories" Here she shares what this meant to her and to others. This is well worth a watch...
I always knew I would like to be a mother someday. Once I was done with travelling, had established a career, and was committed in a relationship. I knew that once I was settled and happy in who I was as a person, I would be ready to be responsible for someone else.
Pregnancy was easy for me, but once my son was born, I was overwhelmed by sleep deprivation and the noise of a constantly crying child. I was not prepared for the onslaught of emotional stress, pressure and exhaustion of being a mother and wife combined, plus the weight of expectation, of watching my every move, as I remained stuck inside the house for the traditional Chinese thirty days of confinement. It’s only with hindsight that you see how you attract recurring trauma over and over again until you can resolve it once and for all.
I didn’t allow myself my first love until I was 21 years old. I am a proud gay man but it wasn’t always that way... |
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