So you all wanted an update on the 104yo who lost her house. Well, we found her a place to stay. Her grandkid sent us a note, and we want to share it with you in this thread. Please, please take the time to read it. THREAD 1/
"I can’t remember a year in my childhood when we didn’t visit the South Coast. There was a quiet, friendly competition over whether us kids preferred mum’s family house (a little weatherboard house opposite the bush in Kioloa) or Nana’s Rosedale home..." 2/
"...They each had their own special kind of magic for me. Nana’s house has steep, creaky stairs up to a sun-stained verandah. Inside, the wooden walls and floors are varnished the same caramel brown and hanging stained-glass rosellas catch the light and send it dancing..." 3/
"...The lounge room with my grandads leather reading chair. The low murmuring and rhythmic smacks of the tennis on the telly. The smell of old books, collecting dust and spiderwebs and bleached by the sun, and pouring over the big ones full of colourful pictures of birds..." 4/
"...and flowers, memorising their names. Coming back from the beach, skin crunchy with salt, to refuel at the kitchen bench and telling Nana about the waves, or the shells, or the cubby, or the crab, or the fight, or the joke…" 5/
"...Heavy eyelids watching the adults huddled around the dining table under the green light shade from my bed. Listening to their quiet chat over a game of cards, punctuated by cheers, laughter or lament. The rare and special nights I was allowed to stay up and join..." 6/
"...Waking to the comforting, stoic whirr of the old electric orange juicer. Walking to my two aunty’s homes on the same block of land. Peeking in the greenhouses. Picking macadamias from grandad’s tree..." 7/
"...Uno in the reading nook, listening to the trees gently dancing in the breeze and the smell of warm, dusty cushion covers in the afternoon sun. Nana catching me cheating..." 8/
"Putting birdseed out for the king parrots, rosellas and rainbow lorikeets and gleefully having them eat from my hands. The possum I met one night on the balcony and seeing the small, bright eyes of a baby peeping from her back..." 9/
"... I knew she would protect that soft, warm little ball of fluff ferociously but how desperately I wanted to reach out and touch them, tell her they were safe here..." 10/
"...The fire that tore through Rosedale was so intense it liquified metal on cars parked on Nana’s street. I think of that baby possum and wonder what could be left of a creature so soft and small after a fire like that..." 11/
"...Everything burned. Three homes full of treasured family memories. Nana’s garden. Grandad’s armchair. My aunty Elizabeth’s home and the hundreds of books which lined it’s walls. Mardhi’s old home which smelled of incense and oils..." 12/
"...My Nana is 104 years old and is now homeless and a climate refugee, evacuated to a city with the worst air quality in the world being filtered through her century-old lungs. And we are lucky, my family is safe..." 13/
"...Yet still the fires around our country burn, showing no sign of slowing. My inbox and newsfeed are full of friends, family and strangers tallying their losses, sharing their grief, begging for information on lost suburbs, animals, friends..." 14/
"This is Australia, 2020 and it feels like a desperate, pleading wake-up call. Please, please, please." 15/
This is not from the family, but consider chipping in to support our fundraiser so we can buy grab rails and accessibility related items for this lady, as well as goods for other families who have lost everything findabed.com.au/gofundme
