Always Liza to Me: A Memoir for My Silent Sister

223 Pages·2009·4.41 MB·English

by  Cecilia Rice

Liza is different. She can’t talk. She can’t walk properly. She’s funny-
looking and when she upsets people, which she almost always does,
trying to bite or scratch them, we’re told it’s not her fault, that she
doesn’t understand. Sometimes I don’t understand either.
This is the story of a family, and of Liza, their severely intellectually disabledbig
sister. It’s a story about what it was like growing up in a large, chaotic family forever
in the thrall of this unknowable, unreachable child. As a child, Cecilia always
believed Liza would not survive to adulthood and that she would never be her
‘problem’. But she did survive.
With warmth, wisdom and humour, Cecilia reveals how the family came to think
of ‘their problem’ as their sister and how, through the passing of time and a
mysterious process of acceptance and forgiveness, their fears and resentment
turned into fierce loyalty and abiding love.
This is more than a memoir about the difficulties, challenges, stresses and
rare rewards of caring for a disabled child, it is a story about family.
Eloquently told,Always Liza to Meis an uplifting chronicle of how even
the most mixed-up of families can teach us great lessons and inspire great love.
A L L E N & U N W I N
Cover design: Christabella Designs
Cover photographs: author's own; front: author and family,
with Liza centre; back: Liza.
www.allenandunwin.com
M E M O I R
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On page 149, the ‘moment of clarity’ is discussed in Marjorie T. Goodban, Ph.D,
‘Communication Intervention in Cornelia de Lange Syndrome’ at www.cdlsnsa.org/publications/
communication-intervention-in-cdls.html, date accessed 5 February 2009.
Extracts on pages 172 and 173 are from a report entitled Western Sydney Developmental
Disability Service, Rydalmere Centre, Psychological Report—Ms Elizabeth Rice, dated 27 October
1998 © Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care (DADHC) on behalf of the State of
New South Wales.
First published in 2009
Copyright © Cecilia Rice 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever
is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational
purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has
given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
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Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
from the National Library of Australia
www.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 74175 167 3
Internal design by Post Pre-press Group, Australia
Set in 12/15 pt Fairfield Light by Post Pre-press Group, Australia
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
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To Nettie and Ken
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contents
1. veritas 1
2. if 7
3. baby doll 12
4. brotherly love 19
5. departures 29
6. school 38
7. the mountains 46
8. deb 58
9. the outdoors 69
10. leaving childhood 81
11. differences 94
12. freedom 100
13. margaret enquires 110
14. heartbreak 121
15. dreams 128
16. venturing 136
17. heartbeat 148
18. moving on 156
19. the inner corridor 162
20. the unforsaken 170
21. new millennium 180
22. mum’s outing 188
23. happy returns 196
epilogue 200
postscript 202
acknowledgements 203
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Once when I was a little girl I heard bleating from behind a fence.
‘Mummy! Listen, a sheep!’ I cried out in wonder.
A sheep! Here near our home, in a yard backing onto a strip of
park beside the canal ...
My mother’s eyebrows collapsed, her mouth dropped and went
soft. I could feel her love reach out to say something, but it didn’t
have enough time to hold me and stroke my hair and whisper into
my thoughts before her words reached me.
‘It’s not a sheep, darling. It’s a retarded man.’
Suddenly the grass was cold and wet, the fence was looming. My
tummy turned sick, my smile hid in the dark place behind my eyes,
the sunlight in my hair went slinking away to shadows.
I was sad.
So sad that in our secret world a sheep wasn’t always just a sheep.
I wished I hadn’t heard the bleating, but I couldn’t make my
ears go backwards. And then they started playing the sounds from
the ward where my sister was kept, where sick people banged their
heads and made noises like animals and where my face and arms got
scratched and Mummy bled from nail cuts and bite marks.
I was ashamed.
So ashamed that I had forgotten, when I heard the bleating.
Ashamed that I had reminded my mummy of the awful thing that
she pretended couldn’t hurt us.
We walked on in silence. I tried not to see through the cracks
between the palings, but I saw anyway. My mummy saw too: there
was a sheep there. And she had turned it into something ugly for
her baby.
For years I carried that sadness, pushing it deep inside me, trying
not to let it frighten me and take the sunshine from my hair again.
But it surfaces whenever I’m too weak to keep it away.
From the pregnancy journal of Deborah Rice, March 2000
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