They Can't All Be Bad

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this post contains the name of a person who has died.

You will not believe what happened to me on Thursday night as I was walking out onto the street to my Beetle to go to work. I was wearing these relatively high-heeled clogs, which I haven't worn in a while, and I was a little bit wobbly on my feet. All of a sudden, I started to involuntarily lose my footing, and the next thing I knew, my foot rolled and I fell flat on my backside. It hurt a lot.

As I was falling, I also made a bit of noise as I was trying to regain control of my body, but I couldn't. As I lay on the road, a little defeated and sore, I looked up and there was the teenage daughter of my next-door neighbour, standing by her car. She saw what happened to me. She saw me lying on the road, and she did not come over and ask if I was okay. I could not believe it.

She would be at least seventeen years old, old enough to have some sort of civil decorum. I picked myself up off the ground, got in my car and made my way to work. But I have to say, when I got home yesterday morning, I felt like knocking on my next-door neighbour's front door and saying to that girl's parents, "Nice kid you've got there."

If I had children, they would likely be around that age now, late teens or early twenties. And I may have failed in the moral conduct of my own life, but you can be sure I would have taught my children that it is the right thing to do to help somebody when they trip or fall, or are in any sort of physical distress.

I think about it now and I still can't believe she just did nothing. I'm wondering if it's a generational thing or whether she is just an arsehole.

It's now 3:22am on Saturday, 26 September. I didn't work last night, but I am on tonight and Sunday night. It's hard to believe it's been nearly three weeks since I started on the phones and began working night shift.

I do enjoy working during the hours when I would usually be home alone and awake at night. However, I have requested to reduce my shifts from five to three a week. The minimum we have to work is three, and that will still be enough for me to earn a good income, but it will also give me enough time to drive Mum around and be her personal assistant, as I tell people.

The shift changes take three weeks to come into effect, so I'm hoping that in the next couple of weeks I will see the reduction in hours.

We had the lady from My Aged Care come on Tuesday morning, and the purpose of her visit was to determine what services Mum may be eligible for. It turned out in the end that she is eligible for all sorts of things like transport, food, occupational therapy, exercise physiology and cleaning, to name a few.

I'm so glad this lady came because it was nice to have a professional step in and say, here's where you've been assessed as being at, and here's what we can help you with.

To give you an idea of Mum's level of need, apparently there are levels from one to eight, with one being minimal care required and eight being high dependency. Mum is on level one, and the assessor told me she thinks Mum is still incredibly independent and lucid, so there was a positive feeling all around.

I think with Mum, my worry about dementia in the immediate future is less serious than my worry about her physical mobility. She limps, and she has a great deal of difficulty walking even short distances. The assessor has arranged for an occupational therapist to come and assess the stairs and the layout of the house. There are a few areas that have steps where I believe Mum would benefit from having a ramp, so I'm looking forward to meeting the occupational therapist and seeing what they may be able to assist with.

The assessor's visit has got Mum and me talking about what I am doing. I hate myself because my shifts now range from 8:00pm-4:05am to some shifts which are 10:30pm-6:35am, and me coming and going at odd hours has been incredibly disruptive to Mum. The other disruption is that I am recovering from night shift all day by sleeping and have pretty much been unable to take her anywhere during the day.

That is, of course, why I requested the shift change, but then we got talking about the Centre, where I also have a job application in. I think I put together a competitive application, and it's a job I would absolutely love. I've wanted it for years, but the positions only come around every now and then.

Mum says she would love it if I got a job at the Centre. She thinks it would be way better than my night-time call centre job. I don't know if I agree with that, but all I know is that I would love to work at the Centre.

So I asked her what she would want me to do if I got a casual job at the Centre as well as keeping my job at the call centre. She said I absolutely had to take it and that she didn't want me missing out on an opportunity because of her. I told her I wouldn't feel like I was missing out on anything because, really, all I want to do is hang out with her, drive her around and be her personal assistant when it comes to all her friends and the organisations she's involved with.

It's something I'm going to have to think about, though. I don't want to leave the call centre for at least a year if I can keep the job. It is a high-responsibility role, and I keep thinking the agency is going to call me and tell me they no longer require my services. And if I got the job at the Centre, it would be my dream job.

I could technically do both, but would it be too much in terms of not having enough time to be there for Mum? Would both jobs allow me to have another job?

But what I really want to know is, should I even be working at all?

I have survived years and years not working, caring for my Dad, studying and volunteering. Maybe I should just ditch all employment and focus on Mum.

But the thing is, it's different now. I'm 45 years old and I haven't worked in 11 years. I've got this job with a reputable company, and if I could just stay there for at least a year, it would look very good on my resume and I could move on to something else.

The Centre would be my dream job. If I got the job there, I would aim to stay there until the end of my working life, which would be in my seventies or eighties, or until they decided they didn't want me anymore.

I think, if I am to put it bluntly, I'm running out of money, and if I am left on my own without Mum, who currently pays the rent, I am going to be in real trouble. I really mean that. I could be homeless. I've got nothing.

I don't just sit here and freeload off Mum, though. I pay a lot of bills and help out where I can, but I would be in big trouble with no job if I was all of a sudden left to my own devices.

I hate that I am saying that right now. Mum has dementia, and it is my job to make her life comfortable, enjoyable, hassle-free and, most of all, meaningful. And here I am thinking about employment.

The thing is, though, I know she would want me to sort myself out literally yesterday. I have to be in a position to look after myself because no one else is going to.

Being Saturday morning, I've got my calls to elderly clients, which I make as a form of welfare check every Saturday and Sunday. I love it. It's very different from my new job, where there is not a lot of room for customer service, but with these welfare checks I have gotten to know a lot of the regulars and we have developed quite personal relationships.

I have a favourite, who is a gentleman who is an ex-SAS soldier. I talk to him for longer than the others, but all of them are beautiful souls, and it's literally the highlight of my weekend to chat to them all.

One of the ladies I speak to is 80 years old and she is actively looking for employment. She told me that she needs to work and she gets a lot of interviews, but she thinks the reason she isn't getting the jobs is because when she actually meets the people, they get more of an idea of her age.

It makes me sad talking to her, knowing that she still has to work at 80. She should be enjoying her life, and she does have a very active life. But when I hear the determination in her voice, I can't help but think, more power to you, and I know something will come up one day soon.

On Wednesday I saw an article on The Advertiser online about how the Government has put up a $1 million reward for information about the disappearance of Gus Lamont. Gus is this beautiful little boy who went missing from his grandparents' property, Oak Park Station, nearly a year ago now. I saw that the Superintendent I am making the book of police oaths for spoke at a press conference about it, so when I got home from work on Thursday morning I watched the full press conference on YouTube.

Speaking at the press conference were the Premier and the Police Minister, as well as the Superintendent. I have to say I was deeply moved by what the Superintendent said and also by the fact that he got choked up when he was talking about the detectives who have been involved in the Gus Lamont case. It made me really happy that I was already making this book of oaths for him, and when I send it to him it will be an act of gratitude on my behalf, on behalf of all South Australians who are lucky to have someone like this Superintendent managing such a huge operation.

I was struck by how he talked about the detectives involved, but what about him? I bet he is probably the most dedicated of the lot of them. I can't really speak to his character because I don't know him and never will, but this press conference really moved me. I also liked the fact that he kind of bit back at journalists who were asking stupid questions. This particular Superintendent also looked pretty good with his beard.

The police oaths project, which is now up to 22 oaths, has made me think about policing more broadly and how much the police are part of our day-to-day lives. All you have to do is go to The Advertiser online and every second story seems to be about the police, whether it be the Commissioner, reports of criminal activity or stories about individual officers themselves. They are everywhere.

I used to have a friend who was my best friend for a couple of years, but he really was a vile creature in the end. He didn't have toxic masculinity; he was more manipulative and bitchy, and so after we had ended our friendship I was shocked to discover he had been accepted into the police academy.

When my brother found out that he was training to be a cop, he was going to call SAPOL and talk to them about some of the things he had observed my former friend doing and saying. My brother never called them, and I'm glad. You don't want to get involved in potentially altering someone's destiny so directly, but it just goes to show that we were not dealing with a very nice person.

Just knowing that he was accepted into the police completely changed my opinion of police as an organisation. I thought if they could let someone like him in to become a police officer, then they would let anyone in. I pretty much had no respect for SAPOL at all because every time I saw an officer I would think, you're probably just like my former friend.

There's something else which bothers me about the police in general.

You may remember the death of 24-year-old Aboriginal man Kumanjayi White, who died after being restrained by two plain-clothes police officers at a supermarket in Alice Springs in May last year. After his death, his family and others called for the investigation into what happened to be conducted independently of the Northern Territory Police. His family specifically wanted the investigation handed to a police force from another state or territory.

The Northern Territory Police rejected those calls and decided the main investigation would remain in-house, with its Major Crime Division investigating the death. The Acting Police Commissioner at the time said he had confidence in the process and pointed out that the investigation would ultimately be scrutinised through the independent coronial process.

There was eventually outside involvement. The Northern Territory Director of Public Prosecutions requested an independent interstate review of the evidence relating to the use of force, and also obtained independent legal advice from interstate counsel before deciding that charges would not be laid. But that was not the completely independent investigation into the death that Kumanjayi White's family had originally been asking for.

Sometimes it all just seems like a big boys' club. But my oaths project has gradually shifted my dim view of the police. They can't all be bad.

I've been thinking about my Dad a lot lately. He had Alzheimer's and his decline was gradual. In the end, I still could not believe that he didn't know who I was. I just couldn't believe it. He was right there in front of me and I was calling him Dad, but to him I was a perfect stranger. We all were. I somehow just couldn't accept it.

But I wonder what would have happened if he didn't get Alzheimer's. What if he was still here now? He was 95 years old when he died, so he was in good physical condition, but what if he had just aged naturally without any cognitive decline?

My Dad was 18 years older than my mother and he was besotted by her. My Dad could be a very harsh man, but he had 100% unconditional love for my mother. I also know that he would have been along for the ride with her dementia. She is still at level one, as the assessor said, and the gerontologist said she had mild dementia. But my Dad would have put in place the best care, he himself would have provided the best care, and he would have been unwavering in his drive to make sure she was okay.

He was good like that. I had so many unresolved issues with him myself, but he would always do the right thing in life.

When I was at this pretentious all-girls school, which was just up the road from our house, one night Dad was driving my brother and me to a school play there. On our way, Dad saw a man who looked homeless and quite rough on the side of the road. Dad stopped and I asked him not to get out and see that man because he looked dangerous.

Dad just looked at me and said, "As a man, what do you expect me to do?"

And he got out and asked the man if he needed any help, which I don't think he did, but it was so long ago I can't remember how that story ended.

Dad also helped homeless people. On the odd occasion that a homeless person went up to Dad in town and asked him for money, Dad said that he wouldn't give them money, but he would buy them a meal. Which he did.

Now, I personally see that as a form of control, because that's how I saw my father-as someone who liked to control people. So in contrast to that, I always keep a $50 note in my purse. If I see a homeless person asking for money, or someone comes up and asks for money and they particularly move me, I give them the $50. They can spend it on whatever they want. I don't judge them or put restrictions on what they can or can't buy. I am giving you this $50. It is yours. Do what you want with it.

Some people might argue that they might go and buy cigarettes or alcohol, which I know is a risk, but honestly, even homeless people have vices. And I'm not going to give someone money conditionally.

But the reality is, Dad's approach was just as good, and I can see where he was coming from. He was a kind-hearted man and I wish he were here just now.

It's a transitional time for me in particular, having just turned 45, started a new job, joined a new political party and started to take more responsibility with Mum. I've been thinking about it and I have really lost everyone. My Dad and my Nanny, and now Mum is on her own journey where she will eventually forget me.

I don't really cry much, but when I think about it I feel a lump in my throat and my eyes start to tear up because I am completely and utterly alone. I am having to come to terms with that. I am being realistic and sensible about it, but just when I think it's all doom and gloom, another person like my young precocious doctor comes out of the woodwork and makes me see that even though I am alone, sometimes people check in in the strangest of scenarios.

Last weekend I was booked in at the JamFactory to do a one-day course in making picture frames. I had been rostered onto night shift the night before and couldn't make the class. I didn't let the JamFactory know because I didn't think there was a way you could, and I know there are no refunds because I have missed classes before.

But then last Saturday night I got a message from the instructor just saying they were sorry to have missed me and he hoped everything was okay with me. It was so stupid, but my eyes welled up a little when I saw the message.

Some young people watch while you fall flat on your arse and turn the other way. And some take just two minutes out of their day to let you know your absence was noted and they hope you are doing okay.