Snippets...

When I place my hand over half of her face I can see the resemblance; She has the bottom half of my face. My lips and chin. I remove my hand from the photo of Shirley and the likeness is instantly gone. She's much prettier for a start; she's wearing a fashionable dress and her hair and make-up are flawless. It's the only picture of her I've ever seen...

My Grandmother- who abandoned my Father when he was aged only five.

She's aged sixteen in the photo; the baby she's holding is wrapped up in a hand-knitted shawl. You can only just see the top of his head and a tuft of black hair but I know it is my Father. Shirley looks happy; she's smiling at whoever was holding the camera- her lips pursed in heavy red lipstick.

I don't know much about her life; despite our curiosity no one ever dares ask my Father the details- who in all reality probably wouldn't have known much to tell us anyway- so what information we Have is based on the snippets my Sisters and I have gathered over the years; from being nosy and keeping our ears open.

What we have gathered is that she married Jack when she was so young because they got pregnant; and nineteen forty four was no place for single mothers, after all. The marriage broke down after the death of baby Peter; who had been born prematurely and sent home in a shoe-box- wrapped up in cotton wool- only to die three days later. Rumour has it that my Father, aged five, had been left at home alone with the baby when he died. My Mother once told my Sister that she suspected that Peter was born early due to a botched abortion attempt at the seven month mark- but I guess we'll never know the truth of that...

When his parent's divorced my Father went to live with his father's parents; who promptly sent him off to boarding school when he was still only five. I know his Father was a truck driver and worked away interstate a lot; but I don't know why Shirley didn't keep him with her. That's what I would have done- regardless of what year it was.

He called his grandparents Mum and Dad; after all they were the ones who raised him. He saw Shirley a few times over the years; but after his twenty-first they lost all contact for a reason that nobody remembered to tell Me; and haven't seen each other since; in just over forty years. She might still be alive; we've never heard any differently. There's no reason to think she's dead- if she was just sixteen when she had Dad then she'd only be about seventy seven years old now.

There were rumours of a subsequent marriage and two half-sisters that my Father has never met- if indeed they do exist. My Sisters and I have had the fantasy for years that we could find Shirley again for our Father and that would make him happy and at peace with his hurtful childhood. That's how We perceive it. He doesn't. He says he enjoyed living with his Grandparents in the holidays and staying at school during the term- but I think he just doesn't know how to admit that he felt hurt by his parents deserting him when he was only five. That's how I would feel if it were Me...

The problem is that we are too scared to look for her in case he gets really angry at us if we Did find her; and I can understand this because I wouldn't necessarily want to see someone again who had hurt me so badly either. When I asked him if we could search for our Grandmother he said that was up to us- but he didn't want to know anything about it or see her if we found her. He's told me a few times that he doesn't care if he ever sees her again or not- and I believed him.

So that's enough for Me to let the Hunt for Grandma Shirley to die once and for all. I wouldn't run the risk of loving my Father's love- of which I'm never one hundred percent sure of at the best of times- to bring her back into his life when I have no feelings for her. I don't know her. She means nothing to me. She's missed out on my Dad and now she misses out on Us. She won't get to meet her four Fantastic granddaughters or their seven children.

Anyway- it's not like she couldn't have found us on her own if she had wanted...

My Mother somehow, apparently, got word to her after the birth of all of my Sisters and me; so she knows of our existence- at least as far as we are aware. And if she had kept the letter with our photographs in it that my mother sent her then she would Still have their address because my parents haven't moved house in all that time.

My Father has a small wooden cross with Peter's name- and dates of his birth and death on it; it used to sit on the mantel-piece above the fireplace in the lounge room until the Earthquake knocked it off.

I wonder if Shirley has anything to remember them by?