Embraced

"Bushfire" by Joan Goldsworthy 

I used to have a debate with my mother-in-law about our mountain. Where we live Kunanyi/Mt Wellington is a looming presence. To me it is inspiring, protective, embracing. To her, while at times inspirational, it could also be oppressive.

I employ the past tense because we will no longer have that debate. Joan – Joey to most family and friends – died last Saturday, aged 77. The date was the 7^th of the 7^th – somehow typical of, and fitting for, this amazing woman.

The Monday after her death I made the mistake of going to work. I lasted past lunch, but achieved nothing useful. Grief is a work that needs space. I decided to walk the five and a half kilometres home; to get some air into my lungs, to let the motion turn my mental cogs.

A moody Kunanyi/Mt Wellington from home 

From the city the mountain felt only mildly dominant. One early navigator aptly described it as a lion couchant. But as I drew closer its presence grew. If ever it was going to feel oppressive, to become rampant, it would be today.

I thought over the last few days. Certainly Joey had been very ill for some time. But then doctors had called her family to her bedside 23 years ago, when she was not expected to last the night. The fighter that she was, she proved them wrong. She recovered, moved to Tasmania, and built a house at the back of our large block. From her studio there, she would add to her stunning body of artwork: mainly paintings in the abstract expressionist style.

"Squall" by Joan Goldsworthy 

Many of her significant later works came to feature Mt Wellington, as well as the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, and other Tasmanian landscape features. For someone who came to resemble the classic little old lady, her works were staggeringly big, hugely expressive. She was not a book to judge by its cover. From her diminutive frame, via her small hands and out of her mild, grey-pated head, came grand and dramatic works that effused emotion, compelled attention and demanded a response.

"Lavender" by Joan Goldsworthy 

It is hard to think that this little (not very) old lady is no longer with us; that she has not somehow beaten decline and death again. This time Joey had quite quickly changed from the person we knew into some kind of transitional being, pale of skin, shallow of breath, and seemingly unaware of our presence. But before the end she had one brief return, one more opening of the eyes, one final acknowledgement of her gathered children and their farewells. 

"Mt Wellington"  by Joan Goldsworthy  

Then she was gone, and only her shell remained. And how different from the living do the dead appear! Their presence drags from us the biggest, most primal of questions, tapping a deep well of emotions, regrets, hopes and fears.

On my walk home two days later, I was still pondering all of this. Looking again towards the mountain, it seemed that its presence had swelled. I was close enough to see individual trees on its forested flanks and to clearly discern single columns of the Organ Pipes. The lower hills on each side seemed to swoop closer still. To me at least, they resembled some kind of giant embrace. Not that I would want to try and score points over my late mother-in-law.

Instead I'll let one of Joey's paintings have the final word.

"Fugue" by Joan Goldsworthy