Darragh Back to Image Columns List Initially the links that a newly-arrived immigrant has to a country are tenuous. In those early days, the people you happen to meet regularly – neighbours, colleagues – are still strangers, and friends are the people who you’ve left behind and whose phone calls you anxiously await. And at first, your new neighbourhood is a strange place - full of shops, pubs, restaurants and parks that you’ve yet to discover. But then slowly, imperceptibly, things begin to change. Your initial cursory exchanges about the weather with the waitress at a local restaurant are gradually replaced with questions as the weeks pass. How is her night course going?  How are those friends of yours getting on, the ones you bought in with you a couple of times when they were over from Ireland. So, over time, that restaurant that you first dropped into purely to get some respite from the heat becomes your ‘local’ and many of those strangers who you met in the early days become important to you in a way you could never have anticipated; they become friends. And, after several months, the municipal gardens you first walked through and which caused you to think ‘how nice’ in an off-hand manner gradually becomes a favourite place of yours and when you bring visitors here you find yourself pestering them, demanding that they agree that this is one of the nicest parks they’ve ever visited. So you’re beginning to feel proud of your adopted city. You’re beginning to feel you belong. When asked are we going to live here permanently I answer no - our stay was always intended to be finite and in the early days our reasons were more clear cut – that it’s too far away from family and friends; that it’s too far away from home – that it isn’t home. But the longer we stay here, the whole issue becomes less black and white. When we arrived we had no history in this country. Now I’m beginning to feel that we have. Month by month our links with Melbourne have tightened but dramatically so of late for there is nothing like a life-changing event - in our case both the birth and death of our son Darragh - to tie one to a place. But if any good has come out of such a dreadful time then it’s an appreciation of how fantastic the Australians we know are. So many people have shown themselves to be extraordinarily kind. So many people, some to whom we were just recent acquaintances, have proved to be so supportive and in such a practical way as well. We were kept well-nourished with hot meals delivered to our home. Necessary tasks that we’d neglected to think of ourselves were taken care of without us hardly noticing. Numerous offers of  places to getaway to were made. And the many phone calls and visits let us know that people were thinking of us and that there was always someone there ‘just to talk’ when we felt the need. As for the hospital staff, as professionals there were absolutely incredible but even more so as caring human beings. If a country is its people – then Australia is out on it’s own. So when we eventually return home as we still plan to, we’ll never be able to cut our ties with Australia completely. Nor would I want to. Melbourne, Australia, will always be so significant to us. Far more than I could have imagined when our plane first touched down. This column is dedicated to Darragh (14th April 2000  –  19th April 2000).           Back to Image Columns List