Status Updates From Dear Son: Letters and Refle...

“Lastly my boys, let us always respect and thank our old people for taking the brunt of the despair, suffering and mental and physical abuse, and surviving. And remember that before them, before the white man ever came, we lived a peaceful and happy existence. An existence that with perseverance, hard work, love and respect for each other, we can recreate.”

“These things are memories, but they are also futures. We tell these stories, speaking of how we lived - sharing our grief, our hope, our strength and resolve, having our pasts and our futures walk with us.”

“Perhaps in heaven there is no unwritten law against showing each other affection - two men - and even if there is, like down here, some laws need to be broken.”

“Yet in my lifetime, the neck chains were swapped for handcuffs. First Nations people still die in police custody with no justice; Australia’s grossly disproportionate incarceration rates do the colonising work that the massacres once did.”

“Pop has got scars all over his body: scars of survival. Scars from the boxing tents; scars from the sawmills; scars from the coppers. Then there are scars we don’t see; scars that he keeps hidden. Scars of the soul that don’t heal. You Pop is scarred from Australia.”