The eulogy I delivered at my mother’s memorial 7 March 2025

I used to write a lot about my family but last year Mum ordered me to stop writing about her. ‘You can write about me when I’m dead,’ she said.
So here I am today Mum. Writing about you. So, let’s start at the beginning shall we.
You were born in 1932 at Lake Tyers, near Lakes Entrance in East Gippsland and were proud because it was close to the Aboriginal settlement.
‘That was until the government started clearing out the Aborigines and re-settling them. I am ashamed even now to think of what this country has done.’
Your father, a migrant from the South of Italy was a quiet fair skinned man and your mother a raven-haired beauty from Tuscany in the North. Your father was working as a farm labourer on the land when you were born and your mother, well …
‘I loved her, El. But I have to say she was a negligent mother. From a very early age I was the grown up in the family let’s face it.’
You loved to tell us Mum that Nonna’s village of Sassalbo became the Gestapo headquarters during the war because it was in a valley and that there’s a memorial plaque on the road, leading down into the village, to your grandfather and to all the other anti-fascist partisans who fought during the war.
Your family moved to Rose St Fitzroy, a poor inner-city Melbourne suburb of Italian migrants. One day a letter came through the slot in the front door of your tidy single fronted Victorian terrace addressed: To the Householder.
‘I grabbed the letter.’ Mum tells me. ‘I was the householder after all. I don’t think I ever really had a childhood. Not really. I was always too vigilant. On the look out.’
By this stage you had a brother, eighteen months younger and you loved him didn’t you Mum. He was a sensitive and creative boy. ‘If he had been born into a different time, he would have been allowed to be, you know, gender fluid, isn’t that what they call it now?’
When you and my uncle started school at George St Fitzroy, he was so nervous he wouldn’t let go of the hem of your skirt. Neither of you spoke much English and were the only Italians in the whole school. Your dad was working at the wholesale fruit and vegetables Queen Victoria Market, and your mum was either out and about as the self-appointed interpreter and glamourous social secretary for the local Italian community or at home where she would silently retreat to her bedroom for days on end. No one ever spoke of such things in those days other than to say that you mother had a problem with her nerves. She had several breakdowns didn’t she Mum. It must have been hard for you and for your brother and for Nonno.
‘Then she would just bounce back, a social butterfly again, everyone’s favourite friend. And again, our little house was full of people, of strangers, Italians she was helping in some way. I hated it,’
When your younger sister by fourteen years was born your mother took to her bed again didn’t, she Mum, like she did after you and your brother? So, you were the Householder weren’t you, Mum? You cooked and cleaned, you cared for your 2 younger siblings, you dealt with all the authorities, the admin, the school, the police, immigration … and you looked out for you own mother for the rest of her life.
But amidst all of this you yearned to be free.
‘I figured out from a very early age that being born a girl was not easy. I used to look at my brother allowed to go out at night and roam the streets and think, why can’t I go out at night and roam the streets? I wanted to go to university, but Dad wouldn’t let me even though I was the academic one in the family.’
So, you married my father when you only eighteen to leave home and because your families all knew each other and you thought he was intelligent and passionate, and you both joined the Communist Party in 1950.
When the Italian Left-Wing newspaper, Il Risvelgio’s editor, Mario Abiezzi, a handsome celebrated Italian journalist and anti-fascist partisan during the war invited you to come to Sydney, to work on the paper for a man’s wages you didn’t hesitate did you Mum?
‘When I got my first taste of life at University High School with all the smart Jewish kids – I always wished I was Jewish– I knew I wanted to get out of Melbourne to see more of the world.’
But your father was appalled wasn’t he Mum. He barely spoke to you in the 5 years you lived in Sydney. And then you and Dad got divorced 2 years later in 1952 – unheard of for an Italian girl in the 1950s!
Being in Sydney was not only your educational and political awakening but you got to dance, and you loved dancing Mum. You even won a Rumba competition at one of the dances the Italian Club held regularly to raise money for the Party.
You loved dancing so much that you were called up in from of the Party Commission to explain such frivolity and to explain your father’s alleged spying activities. During this time, you’d visit factories and wharves to convince the workers to join the union. And how could they resist you, Mum? You were so pretty in your petticoats and stilettos. Your impeccable Italian and your sincere political convictions. You were still only in your early 20s.
And you took you little sister to Sydney with you for 6 months during that time didn’t you Mum because your mum had not realised how sick she was and so you looked after her.
‘I loved that little girl. People thought she was mine. But I always felt a bit sorry for her because Mum had put her into boarding school when she was 5 for 2 years because she couldn’t cope and wanted to run her delicatessen in Rathdowne St Carlton.’
Again, something else unheard of for an Italian woman in the 50s’
Your mother was a wonderful grandmother though Mum. But I know, I know, it’s easier being a wonderful grandmother than it is a mum isn’t it.
When you came back to Melbourne after five years in Sydney you married dad again.
And then you went to teachers’ college.
I was born in 1960. My little sister in 1967 and then you and Dad got divorced for a second time. You liked to remind me that just like Elizabeth Taylor, you were both born in 1932 and married and divorced the same man twice.
‘I was obsessed with her, she was so beautiful and smart, my father told me once.
‘But she drove me bloody nuts!’
Mum had another marriage to a charming and fun Greek man who used to dance in the streets and play Theodorakis up loud when he had been drinking. But it only lasted 6 months.
‘I was no good at marriage El.’
And she lived and worked with a man, a doctor, whom she liked a lot for several years. He was good to me and my baby sister and a great intellectual companion to Mum.
‘I was no good at romantic relationships El. I was too opinionated and neurotic, and they were always unfaithful, too demanding and jealous.’
Mum was a great teacher. She taught for over 30 years. And she loved moving house. We got used to it. Mum, my sister and I learnt to make new friends quickly wherever we went but all three of us were forever restless. We are all searching for a home, it’s just that Mum’s search manifested in an indefatigable interest in real estate.
It’s how as a single mother on a then lowly full-time teachers salary supported her kids. She was doing the house-flip thing long before it became popular and somehow, she always managed to do it in style.
After she left teaching, she got into community-based work and was proud of her time at the migrant resource centre. And she loved her stint working as an unofficial advisor for all-things Italian women’s employment training with Joan Kirner and Carmen Lawrence.
‘They even asked me if I wanted to work on SBS Radio, but I was too shy. I just couldn’t.’ Were you shy Mum. Really? Were you too shy to go to the Young Socialists Berlin Conference in 1952 when you asked to represent the Party? Or was it because Dad was so jealous that they’d asked you and not him, you insisted he go in your place.
I’m sorry Mum that when I left home at eighteen, I had no clue the impact it had on you and my little sister. I remember that you and Nonna and her used to drop over to my first share house unannounced with food and whatever and Nonna would squeeze a 20- dollar note into my hand without you noticing.
And Mum, you took me back over and over again whenever things went pear-shaped in my life and until I sort of got my shit together at twenty-two and went to drama school and found a focus. For a while anyhow.
Lately Mum, you’d tell me let up on my own son. ‘Leave him alone El. He’s a good boy. He’s smart. He’ll find his way. Stop nagging him.’ I had learnt from the best after all.
And you always looked after me when as an adult my relationships broke down or I lost my job or just because I was all over the shop trying to have a career in the arts. It was always so organised and nice at your house Mum.
But we did argue a lot Mum, didn’t we? You used to say, ‘We are just very different you and me El. I will never understand you and the choices you have made, and you will never understand mine.’
Friends were shocked at how Mum and I could argue but how easily we recovered. We were like a couple of old pros who’d amicably shake hands after a fight, make a cup of tea and watch an old black and white noir movie together on the couch as if nothing had happened. The things we said to each other!
But there was always love Mum. Always. You were always there Mum. You were there when I had my baby and was on my own and you were already seventy. And for your younger daughter, you were always there Mum when she had her baby. And when she died Mum, you were there for her little boy when you were seventy-eight. And you continued to be there for your late-daughter’s son for the next fifteen years and up until only 3 months ago.
And now you are not there anymore Mum, and it feels strange. So Strange Mum. You were ninety-two.
I’d often arrive at your house during the past year or so and find you in your favourite chair, a cup of tea going cold on the side table, a heat bag slewed over your left shoulder for the pain, watching yet another documentary on Mussolini.
‘You know, El, they never mention Mario Abiezzi. He was there El. He was there. But they never mention him’
There is some conjecture over Mussolini’s death in Italy but apparently yes, the killing of the dictator was carried out by a Colonel Valerio and his second in command Michele Moretti whom Abbiezzi sent to capture.
Or I’d find Mum watching Hard Quiz on ABC TV. Hard Quiz? She loved it.
Or a classic Hollywood movie. Always the movies.
Remember Mum, you did say, ‘You can write about me when I’m dead.’
Last year you told me: “I lost a child; you can never recover from that. But I have had an interesting life. And I have you El. You’re a good woman. A bit of a control freak but you still look good for your age and aren’t you pleased I paid off your mortgage? And I have my friends still, the new ones I made here in a country town of all places! and I’ve got the book club although the books they choose are terrible. I miss Melbourne though. I miss going to the movies with my best friend. I miss driving. Jesus, I miss my car. I miss my little girl and my brother. Both dead. When did they die El? I miss my Melbourne book club although I’ll never forget how they tried to throw me out because I complained that no one bothered to read the book except me mostly. Is my best friend still alive El?’ Yes Mum, and she’s here today Mum at your funeral. And so are over a hundred other people from all over the place. Kids and teenagers. People from your book clubs. People from the secondary schools where you taught. The primary school where you took you grandson every day. A couple of very old friends and contemporaries who are still going Mum. Their kids who are my age and looking after them now like I did you eventually have brought them all the way here, a 4 hour round trip. There is even an old boyfriend of yours Mum whom you haven’t seen for 30 thirty years. He looks pretty good still by the way. Got a flash waist coat on and a beret. A beret!
Sometime in recent months when I’d go to my mother’s house and I’d go up to 3 times a day and she’d be ringing me up to 3 times after each visit sometimes, I’d get so sad or frustrated I’d raid her fridge like I used to when I was living with her in the old days.
‘What are you doing El? Stop fussing in my kitchen. I don’t need anything. And don’t eat all the schnitzels, I want some for my dinner.
‘I wished I’d travelled more. But I was too nervous and always looking after someone. Not that I minded. Oh, I loved being in Mexico when I had to go and get your sister who’d got herself into some trouble. And I adored Italy.
Mum was good at friendship. ‘I don’t know how I would have survived without my women friends El. And my books. You will never be lonely if you are a reader.’
Mum stopped reading about twelve months ago. It hit me one day that she’d been telling me for months she’d just read a ‘great biography of Anthony Albanese. He’s a decent man. Too invisible though. Is he married yet?’
Up until this Mum’d get through a book a week no worries, I couldn’t keep up. Are you a speed reader Mum. No, she said, you are just slow and over analytical.’
One day I realised that she had also stopped her daily games of Patience; she loved cards. And crosswords. She was great at the Cryptic. That’s when I saw the change. I saw the future. I saw the loss. For her. For me. For all of us close to her. Mum started to complain she was bored. Never heard that before. That she was lonely. Never heard that before. Alzheimer’s is cruel beast of a disease.
A few weeks ago, Mum, you called me only minutes after I’d left and said, ‘Are we friends? Did we fight? I can’t remember. I’m sorry if I’ve said anything to hurt you El. Did I? Are we still friends?’ Yeah, she’d said a few ‘things’ but who cared. ‘Mum we’ll always be friends. Everything’s okay.’
It was like when my son was little and anxious about going to sleep and I’d tell him stories to calm him, to settle and rearrange his mind, to reassure him that all was right in his world.
‘Mum’, I told her, ‘Your teenage grandson is living with me now and I promise I will look after him and I shall try my best to pick up where you left off. Your young -adult grandson has a new job and yes, he got his licence and yes, he wants to study but just doesn’t know what he wants to do yet. And yes, you are lucky to have such lovely grandsons.’
And yes, I won’t wear that gingham black and white checked linen dress again because it does nothing for me. And no, I haven’t driven my boyfriend away yet. I even have a little job next week. ‘Will you get paid?’, she asks.
When Mum went into residential care 2 months ago following a 5-week stint in the local hospital: ‘It’s your heart Mum. It’s not working as well as it used to.’
‘Of course it’s not. I’m nearly ninety-three for God’s sake.’, she snapped. ‘Everything’s packing up on me. Getting old is bloody awful. Drive me to the doctor. And take my car, yours costs more to fill.’
When she was in Aged Care, she was at times restless and confused but mostly she was calmly resigned. “They’re so obliging here El. Thank God for the public health system.’
My best friend and I had madly set up her new room the day before mimicking as close as feasible one of Mum’s own rooms at home, at any of the, what? maybe fifty houses Mum had lived in during her life?
Chinese scroll. Check. Nicaraguan drawing. Check. Florentine tray. Check. Afghan Rug. Check. Small glimpses of Japanese pottery. Check. And photos. Check. Check. Check. She loved her photos. Hundreds of them always carefully arranged in every room of every house and so I’d bundled up her most recent in situ memorabilia and placed them on her bookcase n her new room. Bookcase. Check. Good velvet upholstered upright chair she used to swear by before my boyfriend gave her the comfy legs-up- chair she never stopped telling me how kind it was of him to have given her his late wife’s chair after she died. He’s a good man El. Funny. Intelligent. Handsome too. Stay with him. I don’t understand that Buddhist stuff he is into though. Does he pray? You don’t have to get married. Where’s that lovely ring he gave you? You should wear it more often; it looks nice on your hand but with clear nail polish not that awful black one. Is Albanese married yet?’ And books. Even though Mum wasn’t actually reading anymore, I couldn’t make a new room for her without books. Check.
During her last couple of months, we’d go to the botanic l gardens again like we used to when we walked there every morning. ‘Stop talking so much El, just concentrate on walking’, she’d say.’ Those Gardens were just next door to her final room but this time I’d have to push her in a wheelchair. Or my friend would push her. Or my boyfriend. Or her young-adult grandson. She’d even surprisingly condescended to the ignominy of a walking frame whilst in care. Who would have thought?
In Mum’s final 2 years she’d became uncharacteristically taken with, mesmerised even by the birds in her back yard she’d watch from the kitchen window, the ducks on the lake in the botanic gardens, other people’s vegetable garden and even dogs. Mum said she used be a bit frightened of nature but in those final years and with the dementia changing her brain, she was more drawn to staring at trees and their old limbs and commenting with surprise at how beautiful the birds were, how funny the ducks behaved, how bright the sun was.
And then there was her determined embrace of the colour red. I used to have to secretly stow away her beloved red paisley trousers and ruby red shirt when she wasn’t looking so that I could wash them.
‘You can write about me when I’m dead’ you said.
Mum. You cared for me all my life, never really stopped and even when you couldn’t anymore you still tried. Do you need money? Can I iron that dress for you? Wear a scarf. You need a bit of lippy. Stop fussing, have a rest.
‘You can write about me when I’m dead,’ you said.
Mum, on the night before you died of a heart attack the following morning at 10.20AM and only minutes before our friends arrived to visit – you were all dressed and ready to see them – you were sitting in your favourite chair, and I was lying on the bed in your final room on your final night, and you talked quietly, intermittently, easily and gently about the Modigliani picture hanging on the wall. ‘You gave me that didn’t you. I love that young woman’s face. I don’t know why, I just love looking at it.’ We watched Ingrid Bergman, one of your favourite actresses, with Yul Bryner in Anastasia. I ate the chocolates you’d stopped being interested in by then. You asked me to rub perfumed moisturiser on your hands. ‘Not so hard El.’ You asked me about your house. I told you again that we were going to sell it. This time you didn’t balk at this idea, but you asked for how much. When I told you, you said, ‘Really? That much. We’ll have to go and buy some new clothes. And give some to the boys and you keep the rest. You need it more than me.’ Then she asked how much again, and I told you again.
‘You think I could buy a nice unit for that?’ No Mum. No more houses.
‘So, this is what the end of my life feels like’, she asked. But it was rhetorical really.
‘Yes Mum. I think it is.’ Long silence. ‘Any of those chocolates left?’ she asked, ‘Or have you scoffed them all as usual? I can’t get over how nice your dress is.’
I am wearing that dress today, Mum.
My sister used to write lots of cards and letters to Mum. I found this one she wrote when she was in Central America, taking risks, working a s a volunteer emergency doctor, fighting the good fight as per usual and driving Mum crazy with worry.
Dear Comrade Mum.
I am sorry I can be so difficult. You are my rock. I love you.
Your eternally grateful daughter. x
We never did the mushy stuff Mum and me but lately I’d taken to telling her I loved her whenever I left her. That night before she died and after we’d watched that Ingrid Bergman movie, I’d hovered at her door a little.
‘I love you, Mum.’
‘I love you too El.’
‘I’ll see you soon Mum.’ On closing the door I heard her say,
‘Goodbye El.’
Goodbye Mum.