Essay by Luke Foster

“ Stop drawing yourself and use colour” Maria Foster

My beloved mother has looked after me through thick and thin through my whole life not just my childhood. Even when I was in and out of mental hospitals five times she still called me most days and came to visit me. I think no person has suffered as much as my dear mother worrying about me.

When I was a child mum paid for me to have surfing lessons at Collaroy Beach on Sydneys Northern beaches.

When I was in year ten at school my Christmas present from mum was a drawing workshop at the then City Art Institute. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to go to art school after school and just cruised it as I knew I didn’t need top grades just a strong portfolio so for the last few years of school I didn’t study much and went surfing after school every day rather than studying. But I was still top of my art and three unit ancient history and biology classes. I got a TER of 86.5 after hardly studying which was ok.

Mum was a school teacher as a young adult and saved up for years to go backpacking around Europe with teacher friend for several years. She had so much self control that when she was saving she wouldn’t even buy herself a coffee. It took me decades to realise that mum is literally a loving saint and its because she has so much self control. If she has a packet of chocolate biscuits she only has one or two a day and makes it last for weeks and I sent her a box of early birthday presents and the nurse at the nursing home opened it but she hasn’t even taken one peek as she wants it as a surprise on her birthday on the 9th of July. Talk about self control.

I think that the key to compassion is having self control like my mum and not giving into the emotions that denote no self control like fear, anger and jealousy.

“We must teach more by example than by word.” St. Mary MacKillop

I think my mum is as powerful a saint as the Australian Catholic saint Mary MacKillop.

My mother is a loving grandmother and in my estimation grandmothers are the kindest and most compassionate people on the planet. My grandmother Murtle from Orange was just as compassionate as my mum and would save all year on a meagre pension to buy all her children and grand children beautiful expensive Christmas presents. When she passed I wept for hours as her umbrella of love was so strong that when it was gone I suffered a lot

I feel so sad that mum is now in a nursing home but when I was looking after her she had four falls and hurt herself quite badly and I couldn’t get her to eat and she was house bound. Now they take her on outings each week and she hasn’t had any falls and she has been eating well and put on weight.