Thread by @IndigenousX

I got a tricky story about my Mother I love telling. Suppose I better say it or what!

Gulama flew us to Broken Hill. My brother and I. We stayed overnight there because the only transport was a bus back to Wilcannia where family were living.

For weeks before I’d be talking to brothers, sisters & cousins on phone at Gulama office to get a connection to everyone.
Anyways

Left Broken Hill at about 3pm, ALL DAY WAITING! It was doing my head in. 2 hour trip. Sat listening to cassette headset back then trying to remain calm. When you get towards Wilcannia you see the massive green water tanks. Brother pointed them out. I was nervous/excited as hell.

Jumped off the bus Mom was there and I just jumped into her arms.

She took me down to the back of the bottom pub where brother Moochi was waiting with cousins. Caught up with them & eventually went up to Aunts up the mallee to leave my bag.

Found out from Aunt that mom had been waiting at the bus stop from 6am and hadn’t moved. She’d waited by the bus stop all day.
I was the second child to return home to her.

Our sister who lived close by never returned home in the end.

Never forget the hurt, trauma, heartache of Stolen Generations and the forced removals which started with the creation of the Parramatta Native Institution in 1814.

Our Mothers, Fathers & Communities have suffered for too long.

Has much changed today? No. Removal rates are worse. Early Intervention is not used nearly enough keeping families together, bonding, providing Cultural Knowledge, Strength & continuity.

My sister Saphana who never went home. I was one night away from getting here there.
I was staying with my cousin in Parramatta had invited sister there few nights & she was meant to come next morning.
Car was packed.
She took off during the night.
I felt I’d let family down.

The trauma of disconnection and where her life was meant she just never felt confident in acceptance, of love, belonging.
These are the trauma of removed children, teens and adults

Forgot to add that my father, Reginald Whyman passed away before I got to meet him.
I had never even seen a photo of him until the past four to five years. I’m now over 50 yrs old.
It was difficult to imagine what he looked like until I got to see.

Making connections to Culture, Family, Land is not a thing that is naturally simple & happens.
You can certainly feel the connection but lived different experiences are tantamount to a persons comfort zones.

Some Stolen Generations find the re-connections too difficult.
Some individuals have had their identities stolen by being told completely negative & disgusting lies about their natural families which sits in the belief systems of our brothers & sisters. Takes away trust.

My Whyman family connections, uncles, aunts, great uncles and aunts seem to have been removed at far greater numbers.
I have missed re-connecting to so many of them.
Some are just names on a genealogy and their ages should have never meant that.

Found the only picture I have of dad.
He luv’d his hat apparently.
#ReggieWhyman

Spent two weeks at home first went home. Had accommodation paid for at a local motel but spent the entire time camped in the lounge at my aunts.

First night I must have met 50 relations at different aunts places & in town.
Normally I would have felt overwhelming.
It felt so natural.

In relation to separation. The cards of respect, love, acceptance & allowing Culture for original Stolen Generations were never a thought of process.
I was one of the lucky ones where my adoptive parents Ivy & Michael O’Connor originally from Attunga were awesome & beautiful.

I was treated like a spoilt brat. All my adoptive brothers & sisters were older than I was and adults when I was a young child.
They also spoilt me. I couldn’t have wanted for anything.
I never changed my name from O’Connor back to Dutton until my adopted mom passed.

I still stay & talk with the siblings when I can. Because they’re all so much older it becomes more difficult to see them because they live so far away.

Walking 2 worlds is what every Aboriginal person does as a matter of fact.
I additionally walk within two families.
One originally from Wilcannia far western NSW in a town of 800 ppl where the majority are my relations against metro Sydney at Liverpool in a non-Aboriginal family.

That variation is incredibly difficult. Emotionally, physically, Spiritually. There are so many variations of existence.
Both families have met each other and my biological sisters, brother & a few cousins have stayed with adopted family when in Sydney.

It’s the loss of Culture, Family, understanding it all & being from such a remote location is what’s most difficult to comfortably walk between sometimes.

Being virtually an only child growing up means I feel lost at ease just living my own life.
Makes it feel difficult.