My
dad may have been a truck driver and a laundryman but
he ran his service as a business and he kept his Bondi
family in creature comforts. Good sheets and pyjamas
were de rigueur. When I got to university, Ted as chaplain
was a shock not just intellectually, but physically.
As we became close friends we slept in the same room
several times – in huts, at Newman Society camps, at
Araluen, and so on. Ted seemed to have no concern for
pyjamas. He dossed down in shorts, shirts, old coats,
pants (still with the belt on), T-shirts, whatever was
available. He seemed comfortable in whatever was available,
and wherever he could lay his head. Later, he snored
something fierce.
One
of my enduring memories is the period where he slept
at the back of the St
Vincent’s
Church. He was available to the local Aboriginal community
24 hours a day. I worried about him. In the anger and
the violence around him, he seemed fearless, accepting
and at peace. There always seemed so much broken glass
around. I had dreams of him being attacked but he assured
me he was OK. His faith in the Aboriginal people, however
angry, however drunk, however violent, however hurt,
was boundless.
He
invited me into that faith many times. I remember him
arriving at my house in Annandale
one time with a group of Aboriginal people to shoot
the breeze. It was an absolute delight. He followed
up with a proposal to house a young Aboriginal girl,
Angela, down from Alice
Springs
who needed lodging. She stayed for weeks and enriched
our lives.
I
could never get over Ted’s strength. A dinner never
went by without Ted regaling us of the latest Aboriginal
funeral he’d been to. He took every funeral personally.
He had that Irish way of connecting. The man or woman
who died was one of the such-and-such family, y’know?
He made it feel like the family was part of our whole
big Australian family, that we were all connected, responsible,
involved. How did he suffer through so many funerals?
Shirley
Smith was one of Ted’s great sources of strength. Her
smiling eyes reflected in his. Ireland
was another. When my daughter Thea and I were in Waterford
in 2000, a family there told me of Ted’s statement to
them that he would die an Irish man. He will, too. He’s
told me he comes from just down the way near Thurles
in Tipperary
from where my people came. I’m trying to find a Kennedy
that married a Manning. Just to tap in to that strength,
humour, compassion, and faith.
by Peter Manning
|