In 2011, I remember being awaken by my parents shocked and afraid of the category 5 cyclone that was due to hit our home town that day. We lived in an old 2 story mill house and planned on staying in the bathroom that was located downstairs. We filled the cupboards with food and placed mattresses in one corner but my parents decided that it wouldn’t be safe enough. At 11am we decided we would be safer at the Sugar Mill down the road.
We packed the cars and drove to the Mill where we quickly set up in a smoko room. We didn’t have long before it started. We were smack bang in the middle of the cyclone, which is the worst place to be. With the smoko room roof broken, it started to leak, and I laid awake, unable to sleep. I placed my hand on the brick wall beside me that was shaking terribly. I tried to sleep but couldn’t because my parents were frightened. I remember them saying who will we jump on if this roof blows off (Family of 8).
At around 6am the next morning it had stopped and we were able to go home. Walking under our house, the bathroom door had blown off, our yard was destroyed. We all had nightmares for weeks afterwards and went without power for a month. We ended up moving to the beach, to a new house that had been mildly damaged by the cyclone. We lived there for a few months without problems until my younger brother fell down the stairs.
When Mum picked him up he wasn’t breathing blue in the face with tensed muscles. Trying to stay calm, Mum spoke to him hoping he could hear her and he could. Telling him to take deep breaths, he did just like Mum had asked. He was taken to the doctors and tests were done, where we found out he only had 3/4 of a brain. The Cairns Base Hospital doctors were amazing but we later decided that moving down south was our only option.
Being close to Brisbane meant we were closer to better medical resources. We packed the house and in no time at all we were living in Oakey. My Dad was born in New Zealand but later moved to Australia with his Mum at the age of 3 when his father died. He has 5 brothers that he doesn’t have contact with and doesn’t know anything about. So in Oakey, lives his Mother who remarried and had a child who is now in her twenties. They visited us everyday and were amazing to us for the first year but when my Aunty had her second child everything changed. She was diagnosed with Down Syndrome and from then on nothing was the same.
A year before she was born my 2 younger brothers were diagnosed with Autism. My youngest brother was diagnosed with Landau Kleffner which is a form of Epilepsy. After my cousin was diagnosed, the family fuse started. My Aunty and Nanna saying that her disability was worse then both my brothers. My Nanna became controlling and would rub it in our faces how she loved my Aunt’s children more then us. My Mum ended up becoming depressed and was given antidepressants but that wasn’t enough. I felt trapped and left feeling unloved. I was hurt because I didn’t understand how she could say that about my brothers. My Nanna made up lies about us kids and about my parents to make us seem like liars.
We had enough and decided that we didn’t need them in our life. We moved away from them and lost all contact with them. My parents took the frightening decision to get us christened. They wanted us to have morals, a better understanding of life. We enrolled in private schools and our new life began. Although I was never close to God, this was His plan for us. He guided us through those bad times and now I still don’t know God well but I do know that his love for me is never-ending. Although there still are tough times at home, I now know that God will never leave me and is with me through everything. Everybody deserves to be happy and with God everything, EVERYTHING, is possible.
By: Chloe
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