our roots
My Name is Amy ,
but you can call me Heather
it’s a long story…
it started in a garden and then there was an identity crisis…
Part 1. covid, grief and a divorce
- Two wee ones and a melt down.
that’s the beginning really, a very stuck mother co parenting while living with her own parents going..”who the fuck am I ?! and where do I belong?!”
“when I knew I needed to put myself back together and not wallow in the misery.”
Part 2. “Dad, can you build us a veggie patch?”
I spent a year not being able to stop moving, my mind busy, angry, sad. somehow I fell in love and let a beautiful man into the chaos. my mind was a prison of guilt, trauma and grief and something needed to be done. I had so many good things around me but I couldn’t enjoy them. I was so, so sad. I was lucky to be nurtured and that my people wouldn’t give up on me… the desire to be outside was the only consistent part about me. so, we built a garden..
In 2016 I stared a floristry course, for a whole load of reasons I never finished it. I don’t think I was ready. now I was.
Part 4. Floristry
inner happiness, sounds easy enough but it took a lot to get there. I felt like I had touched death somehow. I felt invincible, so what did I have to loose.. I took some local workshops, foraged, journaled and photographed my progress.
a chance encounter..
somehow I was in the wrong place at the right time..wandering up an alley in Canterbury (I was supposed to be Camberwell)
I saw two women with arms full of foliage. I followed them into a gorgeous Florist shop.. the next week I was working there with them amongst the flowers, learning the trade, washing vases, trimming ends and making arrangements.
with lots of help and saying yes to every opportunity..
I regained my Name.
Heather May Grow
whisky, herbs & the language of flowers
Part 3. The Tea Garden
lots of zucchinis, tomatoes, silverbeet - my love of preserving really took over. I learnt to cook and had an obsessive desire to research edible flowers and weeds. I started making my own teas from the herbs. My dear friend Gayle over whiskey and what I like to call “ Gayle therapy” gave me books, plants and lots of kitchen witch knowledge to keep me going. I had found a passion I wasn’t expecting, I had emerged from the grief haze. I started making plans.
dig a little deeper..
Heather
This is Heather Williams ; maiden McRae
My paternal grandmother, affectionally known to myself and my siblings as "Grandma in Australia" better know as Nanna as we discovered on our first Australian holiday (my sister and I didn't know what a Nanna was..)
Heather was a champion 10 pin bowler, a crafter, cake baker, decorator, puzzle collector, and of course, she loved her garden.
She was shy and observent but had a twinkle in her eye (as my mum would tell me)
We first met in 1996. I remember feeling proud that I had her name. I think I tried to make my sister jealous of the fact.
I remember her having an incredible poker face while playing dominos around our kitchen table.
I was 5 at the time - through the eyes of a child, I was just excited to know that we belonged despite the distance, and I got to see My Dad be a son.
In 2001 we got to see each other again
On my first trip to Australia with my parents and younger sister, I'd never seen such a big house - 4 bedrooms and no stairs. My sister and I thought we were visiting a mansion.. it was really just the family home filled with treasures and a life she had shared with her husband and 7 children. It showed us a whole new world of 60/70s Australia. Bright orange chairs and green psychadelic curtains.. and about every colour and style of tupperwear and pyrex dishes you could imagine even an ashtray with a lamp attached (ashtray not in use) - that sat next to her recliner where she napped and braved her cancer battle.. she passed away just before we immigrated in 2003.
Leaving a very big hole in "The Williams world " She really seemed to be a true mother hen with her brood of children and Grand children.
There's so much left unsaid, and questions I wish I could ask her, but instead, I look for Heather in other places - like in the garden.
Hers was packed with shelves covered in Orchids and Cacti - pots of succulents and many hanging indoor and outdoor plants - many that are still thriving now.
Indoors there were shelves of what seemed like every 'readers digest' on the planet.
I have inherited her gardening books, and it gives me so much joy to know our hands have touched the same pages.
May
“Grandma was a forager like you, Amy. She made flower arrangements for weddings and for local Bring and Buy sales.
She loved the rhododendrons at Loch Rosque.
We went to gather them with her when they were in bloom She also loved Copper Beeches, Hawthorn trees and the plant called Honesty.
Also Pussy Willows in spring”
Did you know May is an anagram of Amy?
Patricia May MacDonald maiden; Mooney
She might have been queen of the fairies. She was a magical Grandma - holidays to Achnasheen were the best of times.. I can still remember that very clean dusty smell of carpet in the entrance way that nobody ever used and where my sister and I would sit till Rocky the golden retriever would settle down from the excitement of our arrival.
She made everything beautiful, and that entrance way (no dogs allowed) seemed like her bit of luxury. There was just a wee shelf of trinkets and below the biggest and best ornamental frog in her collection. We used to sit and stoke its cold, smooth head and chat to it while we waited.
The house felt like home, but there were rules that we followed. No dogs in the sitting room, no jumping on the settee. The living room she had a table of paper weights she collected, which we admired but almost never touched there was glass cabinets where her dolls house furniture lived, family photos and of course.. more frogs.
My sister and I (also named Patricia) used to top and tail in a single bed in my uncle Jimmys old room and we would try our best to wait until she was awake before heading downstairs, but the staircase was so squeaky we were always caught.. Grandma was probably up for hours before us.. hair in rollers and cups of " potato tea" and the biscuit tin ready for us.
She made everything so exciting for us right down to the microwavable McCain chips and pots of Muller rice for desert.
Her front garden featured her frog pond and in the spring, the garden was sweet and cottage like set against a back drop of the highlands. Still my favourite holiday destination.
What I remember of her was she was always a busy woman she seemed to always be on a mission. Helping in the village she lived in and chasing after her dogs and looking after grandad when he came home from the milk run.
she had a wicked sense of humour and like most woman in our family her eyebrow raises and quick wit was unchallenged.
Cigarette in hand cup of tea in the other - sitting on the kitchen counter is how I will always see her..
I'm lucky my own mother has a laugh and a face so very like hers.
Grow
My brother will forever be the angel and devil on my shoulder, keeping me grounded but egging me on.
He will be etched on my childrens faces, in my partners eyes, the songs that appear on my playlist, the goosebumps up my arm when I speak of him and in every bouquet I make…
Brian. My reason
When getting Brians cancer diagnoses, it was like a giant boulder struck me in the guts.
Fear, guilt, anger, helplessness.
The pain of love.
I remember slowly sliding down into the corner of my room hiding from the joyful noises of my two year old while I listened to my mum gently tell me the news.
I was pregnant, sad, and coming to the realisation that I was pretty miserable regardless of my brothers terminal illness. Out of control in my own life, my self-worth had never been terribly high, but what was left of it seemed to be like dust at my feet.
And it wasn't getting any better..
The next ten months of watching my brothers health deteriorate over video chat during a global pandemic, and my family being torn to bits in their grief only made me realise I was lucky..
My hilarious, charming, musically eared, handsome, annoying big brother, this man who both crazily infuriated me and who I loved so deeply wasn't.
This bastard of a disease was going to take him and pull his body from our world.
I needed to grow for him when he couldn't anymore.
I could better my situation, not that I fully realised the scope of it all at the time. Something needed to be done, or I would be leaving by choice.
I know I'm fortunate to have had this epiphany, but it took time to reap the rewards
My grief for him began before he went, knowing I would never sit by him, listen to music, or watch a film with him again. I couldn't get mad at his life choices, his mistakes, or his crappy one word text responses. I just always thought we would have more time. I compartmentalised my grief and instead took action organising our family photographs and letters, putting home videos to digital just in time for him to see. It gave me purpose and a beautiful look into our simple, family ways.
On August 13th, I walked down my hall before I turned into my then 9 month olds room. Something stopped me, I took hold of this photograph of Brian and I in Applecross on a beautiful autumn day ( the drive of my life.. through those narrow hills), and I kissed it. a couple of hours later, my Dad was at my door and I smiled and hugged him not realising what he was there to tell me.
