The wail of the women

Australia Day, 2005

You know, as soon as you enter a community out here, when something is wrong. It was not the first time I had heard the wail of the women but for some reason when I arrived at Mulga Bore this morning it hit home harder than it ever has before.
At first all I noticed was people sitting under the trees, sheltering from the hot summer sun. It was unusual for them not to be under the veranda of their homes but not completely out of place. Then once I left the cocoon of my Troopy, I heard it; the unmistakable sound of grief.

When a person dies out here, the women wail. It is no crying, it is a noise unlike any other I have ever heard. Their wail comes from a place deep inside them, so deep that it connects with a place deep inside me and for a moment I relive every moment of grief I have ever experienced. It is not the wail of one women but the wail of many women sitting together in their grief.

I pull up in front of Lindsay's house and he sings out to me from under a nearby tree. I am invited to sit with them and for a while we sit in silence. Long ago I realised that in a situation like this you don't ask questions but wait to be told when the time is right.

A man has died this morning. He had been sick for a long time, in hospital in Adelaide. The doctors had said he was alright. "Why they don't tell us properway what's wrong. They can't say he's right, then next he bin dead." Old Lindsay makes a fair point. I didn't know him, although I may have met him before. But I have sat with his wife on several occasions, and I have watched his children grow and learn and laugh and play in my school. They are part of my story now and I am part of theirs.

It felt different this time being in this grieving community. I felt less out of place than I have in the past. They know me well and I know them, but I also know their customs now and can respond in appropriate ways. So I went and shook hands with everyone. Not the powerful ‘whitefella’ handshake of hello, but the soft handshake of compassion only used during times of grief out here. I gave them a bottle of iced water, welcome relief on a hot day in the desert. And I was able to provide access to services like the school phone and ring up the hospital on Lindsay's behalf to get the full story.

And while it was not the happy start to the school year I had anticipated, it said just as much (maybe more) about my place within and relationship with the people of Mulga Bore.