by Veronika Sophia Robinson

From the moment I became aware of mortality (I was about four when my first cat got run over), I’ve lived with the dread of my beautiful mother dying. And now, at the grand old age of three-months-shy of 86, she has left the shackles of Earthly life; and, in the process, has left me (and my seven siblings) with a broken heart alongside many, many powerful and wonderful memories.

I’m so proud to have had her for my Mum and will be eternally grateful that we shared this life together. I’ve expressed my gratitude with her countless times, and I know that she passed from this world feeling every bit of my love even though we were on the other side of the world to each other. I trust that, in her final hours, when some of her children and granddaughter were ‘by her side’, both physically and by video chat, she heard our voices and ongoing words of love and gratitude. In recent weeks (and months), she has often appeared in my meditations giving me a clear sense that our emotional and spiritual connection remains intact. With her passing, the geographical landscape has evaporated, and I expect we’ll hang out a lot more. 😊 (This was my experience after my father, and my best friend passed away.)

My regret is that so few people knew who my mother truly was beneath her quirks and eccentricities (oh, and did she have a few of those! 😉 The good news is they have definitely gone down the family line). What I will always hold fast about her is that she was 100% true to herself.

My mother was the strongest, most incredible, determined (Oh my god, and stubborn), capable, creative woman I’ve ever met, and the only person I’ve ever put on a pedestal.

For years I have worn her wedding ring as a daily reminder that my parents’ love brought me into this world.



My Mutti (German for Mum) hated (the idea of) funerals; in fact, she’s never been to one, and it’s ironic that I’m a funeral celebrant. I don’t write sanitised eulogies (unless a family requests it), so when reflecting on how to tell my mother’s story, primarily as a keepsake for myself and the descendants down my family line, I felt it should be done with honesty. My mother was the Queen of Quotes, such as:

Honesty is the best policy
Cleanliness is next to Godliness
There is nothing to fear but fear itself
It’s the thought that counts
The smartest one gives in first
The squeaky wheel gets the oil
Dare, do and be silent

What follows is my tribute, rather than a eulogy as such, based on my conversations with her over the years, and my daughterly experiences of her. Some stories are kept in the vault. I am acutely aware, as one of eight children, that we each view parents through our own lenses.

Angelika Om Namaha

(formerly Dagmar Freia Harbers, nee Hellwig)

Sunrise: Wismar, Germany 27th May 1939
Sunset: Maryborough, Queensland, Australia 28th February 2025

The story of my mother: tree hugger, polarity therapist, snake charmer, green-thumbed white witch, astute astrologer, culinary Queen, children’s book author and illustrator, colour healer and all-round Goddess with a mischievous sense of humour and naughtiness. Quirky, eccentric and one of a kind.

It was the late Springtime, in Wismar, East Germany, just before the start of WWII, when Lieselotte and Erwin welcomed their daughter, Dagmar Freia Hellwig, into this world. Dagmar means ‘joy of the land’; a name that would hold the essence of one of the greatest loves in her life: gardening, growing and having her hands in the soil.

Freia, after Freya, the goddess of fertility, love, and beauty. Fertility was, indeed, my mother’s middle name, as were love and a deep aesthetic sense of beauty.

Hellwig, from pre-Medieval 7th Century German, was a baptismal name which translates as “Battle-battle”. In those days, it was the practice to call children by names which would help them in life. When survival was required, at a time in history when all rule had broken down, being ‘battle ready’ made sense.

Dagmar was raised alongside her brother Peter and sister Helga. Mum often spoke to me of the three siblings who died in infancy, and how her mother’s breasts, full of milk, needed emptying to relieve the pain of engorgement. The memory of ‘drinking’ in her mother’s grief never left her and she spoke to me many times about the impact this had.

Mum recalled how her father, Erwin, was a brilliant violinist and was preparing to move to Toronto, Canada to work as professional violinist but was thwarted by war. This love of beautiful music remained with her till her last moments on this Earth.

Lieselotte’s domestic aesthetic made an indelible impact on my mother. She recalled how her mother would place beautiful laundered and ironed linen away in a cupboard tied up in red satin ribbon. From her mother, my Mum learned to add a peeled potato to the cooking oil while making Berliners (German donuts). The War took its toll in countless ways, such as lack of fresh fruit. The childhood diet consisted of white-bread sandwiches, with the treat of fresh fruit at Christmas. It’s hard to comprehend, from our over-consumptive modern ways, that a child would have to share a single piece of chewing gum with two other children, but that’s the way it was for them.

Three other strong memories from her childhood include when she fell through ice on a pond (nearly drowning and freezing to death), and her sister running off to get help. My mother feared that no one would come back in time. That fear of drowning remained with her for life.

Mother appeared in a black-and-white movie, the title of which translates to Silent Tears.

Amongst her favourite childhood memories, were when the family lived on a farm in Sweden for a time.



In 1956, Lieselotte and Erwin made the life-changing decision to emigrate to Australia.

 

As it happened, they stayed for only a short time before returning to their homeland. Dagmar, Peter and Helga stayed in Australia, and would remain for the rest of their lives. For my mother, it was the most incredible adventure. There was the warmth on her skin, which was exhilarating, and a love of the expansive landscape.

Mother found work on the Birdsville Track as a jillaroo on a cattle station. Still trying to get her head around learning a foreign language, there were many times that she didn’t understand what was being said, such as the time her boss asked if she needed a spell. Mum had no idea that he was asking if she needed a ‘rest’ as she thought he was asking about words and spelling.


That same boss took her as his lover, but not for long. Long enough to change the course of her life, however. When she told him of her pregnancy, he gave her money for a termination. Instead, my mother used the money to travel. Alone, frightened, with nowhere to go, she ended up in a home for unwed mothers. It was run by the Salvation Army. Far from being a place of nurture, it was more a place of torture. She remembered being on her hands and knees, while heavily pregnant, scrubbing floors to cover her ‘keep’. During labour, she was slapped across the face for screaming during contractions and told to “shut up”. These were such difficult months for her, and during the course of her adult life she’d often say to me that she couldn’t stand the sound of the Salvation Army brass bands because it took her straight back to that place of shame.

With a fierce loyalty, determination and courage, Mum held her newborn son, Wolfgang, in her arms and once again made her own way. Leaving the Queensland town of Rockhampton far behind, she travelled alone with her baby boy on a train to the city of Adelaide in South Australia.

On the ship over from Germany, my mother had befriended lovely young women a similar age to her and they’d kept in touch by letter. As it turned out, their brother would become my father; and they, my beautiful aunties. There’s a whole other story there, with how my Dad ended up in Australia! (newspaper clippings)

From the day he met my Mum, Dad was besotted with her, and I know he loved her till the day he died. In my last conversation with Dad, he said “I still love your mother.” Mother always felt a sense of shame (shame was a recurring theme) that she could only afford a dress from Rockmans (a clothes shop) for her wedding, and that it was purple rather than white. (I’d have loved a purple wedding dress!) and a plastic poinsettia flower for her wedding photo. Their wedding photo is one of my favourite pictures.




My father ended up going overseas to work for a while and my mother and brother moved in with my father’s parents and sisters. My grandfather was not happy about an ‘illegitimate’ child living under his roof. (I know they were different times, but have no words for this.) These were the days before BACS and money transfers so there was no easy way for my Dad’s pay packets to reach her. So, she ended up finding work as a housekeeper, leaving her young son in the care of his lovely, doting aunties. Mum remembers learning how her father-in-law wouldn’t let my aunties feed the baby, so they’d sneak a bottle in through the window. (Again, I have no words.) One day, my mother came home from work to find the baby, and her bags, outside the front door. This would be the first of a few ‘evictions’ and losses of home that she would experience in her life.

While living in Adelaide, and at just 21 years of age, her second child, a daughter she named Heidi, was welcomed into the family; and in 1962 another son, Horst, was born.



My father had secured lucrative work in Papua and New Guinea as an exploration manager (something he would do for many years, and throughout my childhood). My overriding memory is of all the times Mum and I waved him off at the airport. There were different roles over the years, including working up in the highland jungles, supervising up to 2000 men at the Bougainville Copper Mine. For a time, the whole family lived in PNG. There were often Earth tremors, and Mum recalled coconuts falling off trees onto the corrugated-iron roof of their simple home, and how it always sounded like bombs were going off.

 

They lived in Rabaul and Jackanut Bay and learned to speak pidgin English. With bleach-blonde children, the family stood out amongst the indigenous New Guineans. Each of my older siblings has memories of this time, such as fishing in the moonlight or the smell of the copra factory drying coconut. Heidi recalls doing schooling through School of the Air, as well as the old copper boiler Mum used to wash their clothes. For as long as I can remember, my mother has always been resourceful. When Heidi’s panda bear leaned against the copper boiler, and had its arm burned off, Mum fixed it by using a black sock as prosthetic!
pic of horst in png

The family moved back to Australia, and bought a home in Brisbane. My Dad continued to work in PNG and would be away for months and then home for a couple of weeks. My Dad had been quite clear that three children were more than enough so when she discovered that she was pregnant with me, Mum wrote a long ‘love letter’ to Dad to say how delighted she was with the news. From before my birth, to throughout my childhood, my father primarily worked overseas meaning my Mum was single-handedly raising the children.

My arrival in 1967 made life interesting: I ruined my big sister’s life (You’ll forgive me one day, Heidi 😊) and was doted on by Wolfgang who loved to hold me. In sunny Queensland, we had a pool in the back garden. My Mum’s heart probably stopped the day she saw me in there drowning…all her fears about water coming to the surface of her memories.


Our parents bought a block of land on the same road but in an undeveloped area of scrub and built a beautiful home equivalent to a show home. I remember the huge oval-shaped swimming pool and large passionfruit vine. These lovely times were punctuated by my father’s accident in New Guinea. A family’s hut had caught fire and he raced in to try and remove a drum of oil, ending up with third-degree burns. When he arrived back to our home in Brisbane, I wasn’t allowed to see him for a couple of months because his wounds were so severe.

Although her hands were full with four children, she was living in a beautiful home and creating a garden from scratch. I wonder if she had any inkling that she was only half way through making a family.

It was at this time my mother’s life was to take her into completely new direction. When pregnant with my sister, Ramona, in the early Seventies, Mum had wanted to have a home birth. The doctor refused to assist. While in hospital for Ramona’s birth, there was a small booklet on the zodiac sign Gemini. Mum read it from cover to cover and felt like someone had seen into her soul. Eager to learn more, she started buying astrology books and learning about who she was and understanding the way other people thought and felt. By this stage, Mum and I were both vegetarian and she chose to raise the other children vegetarian.

While I’d chosen to stop eating meat for ethical reasons, my mother was motivated by something she’d read about vegetarians having an easier time in childbirth. Within 11 months of giving birth to Ramona, she welcomed Kamahl into the world. No hospital this time. My brother was born at home without medical assistance. My mother’s journey into personal and spiritual development had accelerated at lightning speed following the birth of Ramona. Faith in herself, in her God, and in her baby gave her everything she needed to birth at home. This proved to be one of the most empowering moments of her life. This was 1974 and long before ‘unassisted’ or ‘freebirth’ had the popularity that it does today or the publication of books and articles on the topic.

My Dad’s response to his vegetarian wife and children? To buy land and raise beef cattle! I was about seven or eight, when my parents bought 700 acres of land a couple of hours inland from Brisbane. We left our beautiful, modern home in a brand new developing suburb and moved to ‘the middle of nowhere’, or so it seemed. The little house on the property was not much more than an old shed. I remember sleeping in a drawer on the floor, and mice running over me. While the home couldn’t have been more different to where we’d moved from, around us were fields, mountains, spring-water creek and space. So much space to roam. I imagine it made parenting that bit easier when her kids could just scarper off and disappear for hours on end.

It was while living in this home (for about a year or two) that my mother taught me one of the greatest lessons of my life: the power of the mind. I’d been running around outside when I stood on a rusty nail. My mother sat me on the outdoor steps in the warm sunshine, and placed my foot in a basin with water and Dettol. As she pointed to the red line running up my leg, Mum said “Veronika, if that red line reaches your heart, you’ll die. Use your mind to see it going back down your leg and disappearing.” My mother had stopped visiting doctors for herself, and the children, and taught herself about colour healing, herbs and other natural modalities, and this became the holistic template which would shape my whole life. I don’t remember how long I sat on that step for or how much my mother’s heart palpitated, but the line disappeared and I lived to tell the tale.

My mother was constantly learning and exploring new ways of living and being, and reading esoteric tomes and books on psychological astrology. Though her days were dedicated to raising her children and overseeing the property while my dad worked away, she never lost her desire to expand her horizons. Having left school at the end of grade three, she was acutely aware of her lack of formal education; and yet, her wisdom, knowledge and voracious appetite to penetrate the mysteries of life never waned.

Confident in her life choices, and strengthened by her previous birth, a new sense of conviction emerged when giving birth to my brother, Rene, two years after Kam’s arrival. Mum planned a gentle homebirth in their bedroom and had been deeply inspired by Frederik Leboyer’s book Birth Without Violence. When Rene arrived, on my Dad’s 41st birthday, he emerged with the cord wrapped around his neck, twice. All colour drained from my father’s face. “Shall I call the ambulance?” he asked, his voice trembling. And there she was, my Mama, embodying the power of her convictions, and cool as a cucumber gently unwrapping the cord.

It was while living at this house that my mother started keeping canaries. Outside she’d built a huge aviary for them, and adored their beautiful birdsong. Now, if there’s one thing you should know about Australia, it’s that there are creatures. Creatures that can kill you rather swiftly. One day, a red-belly black snake had slithered into the aviary, eaten her canaries, but was too ‘full and fat’ to get back out through the wire and ended stuck in there. It’s fair to say, many Australians would have taken a spade to that snake and said ‘off with your head’ (I witnessed that many times on the school playground when a teacher ended a snake’s life). What did my mother do? (even though her heart was breaking at the loss of her canaries) She covered the snake in a raincoat (no, it wasn’t raining) and used a spade to hold the raincoat and the snake down, while she used wire cutters to free the snake. Did I mention my Mum was kind and one of a kind?

The land we owned was at Freestone, on the Darling Downs, and included Mount Dumaresq (now a nature reserve conservation park), a spring-fed creek with granite dam, fields, scrubland…oh, and plenty of snakes, goannas, spiders. When we initially moved there, my dad tried raising calves. It was so hard sustaining them and the land during a never-ending drought. Then my parents turned their hand to growing soyabeans and barley, but with no irrigation system in place, they ended up struggling to grow in the parched earth. There’s an irony to the level of dryness, when, below our land, was an artesian basin (underground lake). Three bore holes were drilled which gave us an unlimited supply to feed into a large tank. My parents’ pioneering spirit kept them going no matter how many failures they endured. When a bore pump broke, you can bet it was while my Dad was overseas.

After the soyabeans and barley, my dad planted a Christmas tree plantation, and my mother planted hundreds of walnut trees. A long-term investment, for sure. My mornings, before sunrise, involved helping to water each tree by hand. It needed to be early because the water had horse manure in it for added fertiliser but that attracted those dreaded Aussie flies so darn quickly.

By now we’d had a few horses and would end up with around seventy horses (and a few dozen cats once litters of kittens arrived). There was plenty of space for all of us: horses, cats, Lightning the pig, and Flash the Greyhound.



For all my life, mother has had long blonde hair. You could see her a mile away. With her Claudia Schiffer cheeks, and a gorgeous figure, she carried an innate magnetism. I’m sure Mum invented feminism, for she was living the braless life way back when. But, oh my god, as a teenager, I was acutely aware of all the men watching my sassy mother walk down the street in her tight t-shirt and white jeans.

Ever ambitious, my father not only built a new home but began work to create an Olympic-sized equestrian centre which, in time, would develop to include stables, a restaurant and holiday accommodation.



The home my parents built was designed to last several lifetimes, and was a U-shape with a courtyard. I loved how when we stepped outside, we were greeted with the exquisite scent of freesias. The courtyard also had a banana tree and pawpaw (papaya).



The home had been built on a disused gravel pit. There wasn’t an inch of fertility or life in it. And yet, over the years which followed, my Mum took that rubble and created a fertile and lush Garden of Eden. We ended up with a huge, huge garden where she grew avocado, carob, olive, pear, apple, fig, cherry and orange trees as well as other trees, shrubs, herbs and flowers. My Dad continued to work overseas, and while his income allowed us this marvellous lifestyle, the reality was my Mum worked seven days a week, all hours of the day. And yet, her energy never seemed to wane.

If a bore pump broke, if a horse got stuck in a cattle grid or became ill, or any other sort of stress, it all fell on Mum’s shoulders. More than once I heard her say, and demonstrate, “anything a man can do, a woman can do better!” No matter what she faced, Mum was never defeated. Ever.

During the years between Horst’s birth and the birth of my youngest brother, Albert (another unassisted home birth baby), Mum carried three babies in her womb who never made it Earthside.

When mother began married life, it wasn’t unusual for her to have a cigarette, a glass of wine and to kick up her heels (she hosted a party on New Year’s Eve when I was three days old). By the time she’d had eight children, her life couldn’t have looked more different. With a devotion and love for the Divine a lofty pursuit of spirituality consumed her being. Dedicated, disciplined and determined to be her best self, mother would rise well before us children to meditate and do yoga asanas outside on the lawn as well as Kriya yoga. This was her ‘me time’ and no doubt when we were at school she enjoyed peaceful moments of quiet to read some of her many books. In this new house, she had a dedicated Astrology Room. To me, it was the most magical of spaces from its bookshelves laden with ancient knowledge to a beautiful glass coffee table with an astrology chart embossed in gold. We were forbidden from entering that room. It was her space. I don’t know about my siblings, but curiosity is my middle name so the second I could sneak in there and be part of the magic, I’d do so. I’m thrilled that my daughter Eliza is a third-generation astrologer and that this love of the planets has continued to me and her. My mother would naturally ask anyone she met for their date of birth and if they knew their time of birth. This is how she taught herself: one birth chart at a time.

Studies also included Theosophy, Eastern Religions, being a devotee of Paramahansa Yogananda and Krishna. Mother was a sponge for anything which would help her connect with the Divine. During my secondary-school years, I had special permission to have sports afternoons off and Mum and I travelled to Toowoomba to the Theosophical Society. It was my favourite ‘lesson’ of the week: delving into spiritual and psychic matters and learning to read auras.

I loved spending time with my mother, and given the choice would rather have stayed home with her than attend school. From time to time, she’d let me have the day off and we’d just hang out together: eating lunch in the sunshine, watering the garden, listening to music. Jealousy reared its ugly head when she home educated my younger sister and brother for a time. “But I wanna stay home with Mum!”

Mother was a person of endless energy: mowing the huge garden day after day, forever growing new plants from cuttings, sewing us clothes, cooking and baking the most delicious foods. On one hand, she’d ensure our meals were on the table ready to eat when we got in from school at about 4 to 4.30pm. Plates laden with grated carrot, fresh beetroot, capsicum, cucumber, tomatoes and more waited on the bench. Unlike the white-bread jam sandwiches of her childhood, she sent me to school with the Ultimate Sandwich: chunky wholegrain filled to the rafters with every vegetable you can imagine. (I still cringe that I swapped them with my friend for her white-bread jam sandwiches! #grassisgreener) And then there were the treats: gigantic pancakes so thin and crepe like, rolled in fresh-squeezed lemon juice and brown sugar. This was our standard Saturday night treat. Sunday lunches were special family time (we had to wear our best clothes) and we sat down to roast vegetables and delicious nut roast and her amazing onion gravy. Mouthwatering pineapple sponge cake, the BEST cheesecake in the world, Berliner Pfannkuchen (jam donuts) and more were amongst her signature dishes. I can’t, to this day, smell cinnamon without thinking of my mother. There are some foods that I find hard to eat (unless I’ve made it), because there’s just no comparison to how delicious my Mum’s version was: such as her potato salad.

Mother lived in fear of being flooded in (even though it hardly rained! We had a seven-year drought) and so our store cupboards were always full to brimming. There were weekly trips in her yellow Volkswagen Beetle to the apple and grape town of Stanthorpe where she’d buy boxes of fruits and vegetables. If there’s one word to describe her style of nourishing us, it’s abundance.

It didn’t rain that often, but when it did, mushrooms grew here, there and everywhere on our land which was super fertile due to all the horse manure. Us kids would head out, with huge buckets and smiles on our face, and return with our bountiful harvest. What resulted was the best mushroom soup in the world. I’ve never, ever tasted mushroom soup that comes anywhere close.

Mother just had a way of weaving wonder and magic into our lives. A gifted storyteller, she’d often have my mind whizzing here and there around what would otherwise have been the most ordinary things. I still laugh about an old road on the land that led through a grove of trees. She called that track Lovers Lane. When I asked why it was called that, she said “Your Dad chases me through there naked!” I doubt that ever happened but then again, knowing my mother, I can’t be sure!

Christmas was so special: we’d celebrate on Christmas Eve, in keeping with our German ancestry. Growing Christmas trees meant we always had a beautiful one in our home; the scent of fresh pine filling the space while we sang our carols in German and English. I was never sure if it was a cost-cutting measure or just my Mum’s quirkiness, but she didn’t wrap Christmas gifts. Anything she had for us stayed hidden until after our meal. The children would be corralled into the kitchen to wash and dry the dishes (trust me, with us lot, dishes were a never-ending story at the best of times!). When we emerged, there’d be bundles of gifts arranged under the tree. While we sang, our eager eyes would be scouring the piles of presents trying to work out which was ours. Christmas was made perfect with her home-made loaves of stollen (fruit bread with marzipan) and lebkuchen.

Easter, too, brought out my Mum’s creative and playful side. On one hand, she taught me the metaphysical meaning of Easter and on the other, created epic Easter ‘egg’ hunts. Actually, there were never Easter eggs. Health-minded Mum would create a bundle containing bars from the health-food store like chewy apricot and coconut. They’d be wrapped with colourful cellophane and then hidden somewhere in our garden which was a few acres in size. Each parcel had a name on it, and if we found someone else’s, we had to keep quiet and carry on our search. She wasn’t averse to playing hide and seek with us, either, and I remember one time searching and searching and searching until there she was: all scrunched up, hiding beneath an upside-down wheelbarrow. Pretty genius, really.

The Flying Fox she created in the garden was epic. Mum lived with a heightened sense of playfulness, joy and creativity and this permeated my childhood in the most incredible ways.

No matter what she turned her hand to, Mum would challenge herself to learn and keep on learning. When it came to sewing, it wasn’t enough to sew dresses or skirts, there were t-shirts, blouses, and even bras! Mother had a magnificent physique and nourished her bodily temple through nutrition, fasting, juicing, meditation and yoga. An outstanding memory for me is of her discipline, whether that was through the 40-day fast (like Jesus!) or her Silent Retreats (only thing was, the retreat was in a home of noisy children). She’d go for days keeping her silence which, given I was such a chatterbox in those days, I found it enormously frustrating to have her reply in writing.

When it came to her fashion choices, there were so many clothes she sewed that were way ahead of their time, such as the jumpsuit and knickerbockers. Alongside sewing, she’d crochet, embroider, and whizz up jumpers on her knitting machine.

When I’d come in from school with homework, such as creative writing exercises, Mum always made time to help make it fun and interesting. It was through her that I developed my love of word play, creative writing and storytelling. She quite prided herself on being able to say “I love you” in a number of languages.

Home was her sacred space, physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. It was a vibrant house, with huge potted plants delighting in the reliable sunlight which shone through our large windows. Our home often had soothing Classical music playing in the background or some Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Slim Whitman. Not only could Mum yodel, she could do a wolf whistle that would reach across a valley. From memory, she learned to do this when living in the Outback. I can’t hear a Strauss Waltz without thinking of my Mum, and we share a dear love of Mozart.

Each morning before sunrise, after mother’s yoga and meditation sessions, she’d hand squeeze each of us fresh orange juice. I can still hear her saying to affirm “Health, strength and vitality” while I drank. To this day, decades later, I can’t drink fresh orange juice without those words going through my mind. My Mum would leave today’s ‘influencers’ for dead! And she did it all without social media and mobile phones. Indirectly, she has impacted thousands of people.

Whenever I sat at the kitchen counter eating a meal or sipping my juice, I’d read the words on the wall. One of her delights was crafting decoupage: taking large posters and gluing them to wood of different shapes, and then varnishing them. In our kitchen, the posters included: Desiderata; A Smile Costs Nothing; Marriage; If A Child Lives With… (if you don’t know these readings, look them up.) These words were imprinted into my whole being. Not only did she make interesting-shaped decoupage, but she was also an amazing woodworker in other ways, such as building my brothers a castle with all sorts of characters. There was a wooden play station in the garden for us to climb all over, too. Amongst my early memories, after we moved to the countryside, were the two FABULOUS houses she made me. One of them was a dolls house crafted from an old wooden TV set whereby she took out the insides leaving the wooden frame on two sides and the glass front. Inside, she built two floors, a rope ladder, carpeted and wallpapered it, and created furniture. Best Christmas ever (especially as it included a new kitten who had gone to sleep inside it). The other house was outdoors and fashioned from a dunny (outdoor toilet). Mum built a shop for me, and placed linoleum on the floor, sewed curtains, put up wallpaper, and had a counter for me to serve my imaginary customers. This shop was up a shrub-shrouded path at the far end of the garden which added another layer of magic.

While my Dad played piano accordion, Mum’s playing of instruments over the years included piano, clarinet, violin, harmonium, harmonica, flute, panpipes and mandolin. Indeed, amongst my favourite childhood memories are that she’d always tuck me in and kiss me goodnight, then play either the mandolin or mouth organ till I fell asleep.

The words I read each day from The Desiderata (“You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here”) were embodied during my favourite memory-making times: sleeping on the trampoline at night with my Mum. Dad would say “I built you an expensive house, and you sleep outside!” But those nights, under the Southern Hemisphere constellations of an unpolluted night sky, shaped my life and connected me to the Universe and sense of the Divine. I treasured those evenings, snuggled beside my Mum under the duvet, watching for shooting stars and UFOs.

These were amongst the most immensely creative years of her life, and it will remain my privilege to have shared that with her and been the recipient of the many, many activities which brought her such joy.

Without question, her great love was gardening; naturally gifted with a green thumb, she could grow anything (though, my daughters still shake their heads about the time when she visited England and tried to grow a pineapple!) If she was ever in another country and came across a seed that she wanted to bring back home to plant, as she went through customs she’d silently say “May seeing eyes be blind”. Not once was she ever stopped. Years ago she sent me an acorn from Tasmania which had sprouted. A splash of water, then wrapped in tissue, and off she went to the post office. That sprouting acorn is now a sweet little tree about three foot high.

It remains a humorous part of family folklore that, whenever my Dad headed back overseas, my Mum would extend the fence line of the garden out into the paddock. Immediately she’d set the sprinklers on 24/7 (with our bore holes we had an unlimited water supply) to ‘awaken’ the dry soil; and, before long, there were new shrubs and trees added. By the time he returned, the new garden extension looked as if it had always been there.

When I wanted to leave home at the age of 16, and move to the other side of the country 2000km away, she said that she understood what it was like to want freedom, gave me $100, and put me on a Greyhound bus. GOD LOVE HER! Another of her favourite sayings was “Jump, and the angels will catch you!” That sense of risk taking, courage and fearlessness was contagious and I have lived by that phrase.

After having lived interstate for about five years, I came back to my hometown area. One time, my Mum and Dad were out having a leisurely stroll along the road between their property and the neighbouring farm, when Mum was shot. Some campers had either been taking ‘pot luck’ or it was an accident. The injury was serious, and the local hospitals weren’t going to be enough so Mum was airlifted to Brisbane hospital. The Universe always has this way of testing me. That week, in my role as a journalist for the local newspaper, I was sent to do a story at the shooting range! The bullet had lodged so close to my mother’s lung, that the surgeons were unable to risk surgery. Since that day, she has lived with a bullet lodged close to her lung.

My mother’s spiritual path continued to take her ever onward, and it was a dream come true when she travelled to the Self Realisation Fellowship in America. If she had her way, she’d have stayed there and become a nun. Having had this time away from her children and the daily pressures of managing the farm, the sense of freedom ignited something in her and the seeds of change began to take root. Meanwhile, the hands of time and the finger of Fate were to bring massive life changes not just to our mother, but the whole family, in one way or another. My father had always been a deeply ambitious man, and for that there’s so much to be grateful for. The key in life is to know when we have enough, and live content with that, or whether to decide about stretching one more rung.

While developing the equestrian centre, Dad had taken out a large loan with a high interest rate (without Mum’s permission, using the house as collateral). Things probably would have been okay except for my Dad’s well-paying job in Papua New Guinea coming to an unexpected end. That level of income (it was for an American corporation) could never be found in Australia.

All those years that my Mum shovelled horse manure into a truck to make the gravel pit fertile and create a garden, and every flower, shrub and tree, was now at risk of being taken away. Well, the bank took ownership of their home and beautiful garden. There was the accommodation within the equestrian centre to live in, but it was not home. It was not the sacred space in which she was raising her children. Despite her resilience and resourcefulness, something in my mother broke. That sense of betrayal and the entry into the menopausal years found her seeking pastures new. My younger sister and brothers were still living at home, and now in their teenage years. It wasn’t an easy decision, by any stretch, for my mother. When speaking to her about this, she said she’d parented alone for many years, and it was “time for Dad to take charge”. Bless him. He’d never even picked up a tea towel before that let alone have to cook anyone dinner.

Starting a new life in Tasmania, it felt to Mum as if by being off the mainland she was truly free to start again. For better and for worse, over time she became more reclusive. For so long she’d had to rely on herself.

It was during this time in her life that Mum legally changed her name to Angelika Om Namaha. Angelika, from the German, was to honour the divine/angels. Her new surname was inspired by the chant of that name. Om is a sacred sound that represents the sound of creation; the primordial sound of the Universe. Namaha means ‘I bow’.

A new relationship came into her life. In a nutshell, he wasn’t a good ‘un. Not good at all. The attraction was his (pseudo) spirituality and, from my perspective, I can see how easy it was for her to be taken in; after all, my Dad didn’t share in any of her spiritual beliefs (he was a hardcore atheist). When the NOT good un bought some land up on Mt Arthur, near Launceston, he said she could build herself a little home there. And so she did!


She’d saved her pennies and literally built this herself. Finally, a home to call her own. It was miles from anywhere and she had to walk the seven kilometres up the mountain with her shopping bags in her backpack, but she loved living here. Soon she was growing walnut trees and putting down roots (something that immigrants yearn to do). Outside her home, she had a bath tub. When she wanted a bath, she’d fetch water from the nearby creek and bucket by bucket would fill it up. Meanwhile, underneath the fire crackled. Once it was hot, she’d slip inside and soak her weary bones while sipping a hot chocolate. My Mum knew where and how to find pleasure and loved nothing better than a hot bubble bath or a massage.



Electricity was made by a water wheel with a trickle feed gravity turbine.

During these years she travelled in America and rode a donkey through the expansive Grand Canyon.

It was always a joy to receive letters from her and to know she was happy. Until…until the NOT-good-‘un turned up with a new girlfriend (and tried to convince my Mum that every man wants two women at once!). And then, as if history was repeating itself, she came home one day to find her belongings outside of her home and the front door padlocked. It turned out his ‘new’ girlfriend didn’t want my Mum living there.

Mum rented a place near to Launceston, and for a time I came to Tasmania and lived with her in Lilydale. One of my favourite memories of this time was when we’d walked through a forest after a thunderstorm and the scent of eucalyptus was so invigorating.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned (or inherited) from my mother, it’s adaptability. Any sort of change is manageable if we adjust our mindset.

While I was living in New Zealand (married with a young baby), I woke up one morning, before sunrise, to the sound of a flute playing. Paul had just driven to his job as a breakfast radio announcer. In seconds, my brain went “MUM!” And sure enough, squatting outside the window in the dark next to her suitcases, was my Mum playing a tune. She’d just caught a taxi from the airport and was waiting for signs of life in our home. You can imagine how quickly I bounded out of bed. I had NO idea that she was coming to visit. Surprises like this were par for the course with Mum. She delighted in doing things to see people’s reactions. It was lovely having her come and stay and spend time with us and our first child. I’ll always treasure that she was at our wedding, and read On Marriage by Kahlil Gibran during our ceremony.


She returned again to New Zealand for the birth of our second child and was an invaluable support. How can I ever forget the first thing she made after I gave birth was her German plum cake. I love that we have video footage of a day in the Waitakere Ranges enjoying a hike, picnic (including her homemade Berliners!) and her enjoying naked wild swimming in a stream. My mother: the freedom-loving free spirit.

Within a couple of years, my family and I were living in England. Mum had found a tiny studio flat in Launceston, and once again set to creating a home for herself. Her eight children were spread far and wide, and for about thirty years of her life she’s lived at a geographical distance from each of us. We’ve all been to visit/stay with her during that time and created new memories.

Each Tuesday, there’d a letter through my door from her. My heart would always skip with joy at the sight of her instantly recognisable handwriting. The deep connection and bond we’ve shared never wavered, despite how far apart we’ve lived.

From time to time, she’d call me from a phone box with a five-dollar phone card. Just long enough for a quick hello and to say “I love you!” Despite her children’s best efforts, she stopped having a landline and refused a mobile or internet. Snail mail it was! (In her recent weeks on Earth, she couldn’t believe what a mobile phone was capable of; and that she could have video chats with me on the other side of the world.)

We were privileged to have her stay with us in England for several months at a time, over two visits, about twenty years ago. This allowed her the chance to create memories with our young daughters (including teaching Eliza to crochet). These were the last times I saw her in person.

One of her joys in later years, was spending time on her art and becoming a children’s author and illustrator with her book Ronald’s Adventures Through Time and Space (pen name Watalia Isis).



Despite being born under the Sun sign of Gemini, my mother abhorred gossip. You’d never hear her talking about other people. It just wasn’t in her nature. The first thing that I think of is her big warm smile, a smile that came straight from the heart. Emotionally sensitive and shy about sharing her emotions, it was more natural for her to be alone and enjoy solitude than to risk the vulnerability of being seen at her most ‘raw’. As a child, there were only two times I saw my mother cry: when a snake ate her canary and the baby canaries; and when her mother died. In later years, when I was an adult, I saw more tears and she more freely shared her vulnerabilities.

My mother and I would laugh until we cried (I share this trait with my older sister, Heidi, too) and could look at each other and just roll into hysterics.

After years and years of living in her studio flat in Launceston, the owner decided to change it into an Air BnB as a more lucrative income.

Given all her home losses, Mum dug in her heels and refused to leave. And she kept refusing. From her perspective, she’d paid her rent on time for all those years, was a good tenant, and it was her ‘home’. All the plants she had tended to on the patio were removed. Bit by bit they took away one of her greatest sources of joy. It broke her heart. She’d put her foot down so hard that it will have come as a devastating shock that a court order had her out on the street. Who the f*** does that to a woman in her eighties? All her possessions, musical instruments, photos, books, furniture, left behind. She had nothing. Just her, on the street, with nothing.

To add to the difficulties, it was during the Pandemic. Lockdown restrictions meant that none of her children could go and help her in any way. She was completely on her own: Vulnerable. Alone. Homeless.

It was distressing for her, and also for us. Even on ‘humanitarian’ grounds, no one was allowed into the state. For months, I had next-to-no sleep and the worst sense of impotence. There was nothing I could do to help my darling mother.

A charity was able to guide her to accommodation at a lodge on Hobart Road in Launceston, and she was PROMISED that she could stay for as long as she wanted. I have to ask: can you take anyone at their word anymore? With her own room, but a shared bathing area, Mum kept to herself. Day after day, she isolated from the world. The urge to grow, to tend, to nurture, never left her and she was soon growing little plants on her window sill; seeking life wherever she could and finding ways to bring joy to her heart once again.

Nothing in this life stays the same. Change. Change. Change. The lodge shifted its focus and relaunched as a backpackers’ hostel. You can imagine that a woman in her 80s just doesn’t fit that sort of vibe. So, they asked her to leave. Be gone, they said. Be gone. Two days before Christmas 2024, she was ousted from her room and, once again, was moved on without her ‘few’ possessions. She was most distressed to leave without her wedding photo.

Distressed, unsure of where to go or what to do, she caught a plane to Queensland. One of my brothers met her at the airport and she went to stay with him and his partner. It was clear that Mum’s mental and physical health had taken quite a setback. Not long later, after heading out for a walk, she was found collapsed at a bus stop trying to get back to Tasmania. These past couple of months, not knowing from day to day how much longer she’d be with us, and being so far away and unable to hold her hand, has been excruciating. I’m grateful for modern technology and being able to video chat while a few of my siblings were there.

My last visual of her when she was still conscious is her blowing me a kiss. I shall treasure it till the end of my days. Also, my husband singing to her and Mum joining in with a beautiful smile on her face. She always did love to hear Paul sing, and I’m glad she had that joy. The past six years have been incredibly difficult for her; and yet, not for one second was she going to lose her independence.

As a family, her children have found it so hard to witness her refusing to eat and drink. I can’t blame her, though. After everything she’d been through, ‘battle battle’ had taken its toll.

In the last days of her life, I said “I don’t know how you managed to raise us eight kids” and she replied, softly “It was a joy”.

 

It has been a privilege to be at Mum’s side (courtesy video-chat sessions), alongside my siblings from Queensland, Thailand, Western Australia, and my daughter in London, as we’ve said our goodbyes. I hope, in her final slumber, she heard the happy conversations of her children reminiscing about their amazing childhoods and deep appreciation and love for her, and at some level took comfort as she crossed to The Other Side to be greeted by my Dad, and her family of origin.

Mother slipped away on February 28th 2025, at the dark of the Moon (new Moon in Pisces), during the rare planetary alignment of the planets, at 11.11am. Exquisite timing. As an astrologer, she’d have loved that! As a divine being who wanted nothing more in this life than to ascend and experience ecstatic union with the Divine, I believe she orchestrated the timing of her departure long before she came Earthside.

One of the things Mum and I shared in common was a divine homesickness and longing for the ultimate utopia. I’m glad she’s Home now. It’s a home that no one can ever take from her again. #homesweethome  No more battle-battle, just Peace-Peace

Guten nacht, Mutti. Ich liebe dich.
…
Angelika AKA the original Wonder Woman, and her mischievous, creative, quirky and inspiring ways, lives on in her eight children, seventeen grandchildren and three great grandchildren. The legacy she leaves is magical, mysterious and magnificent beyond measure.

She will keep sending us signs like red robins, white feathers, shooting stars and the hooting owl.
Always close.
Always near.
Always loved.


~
THANK YOU:
My siblings, and our spouses, are immensely grateful to my brother Wolfgang and his partner Suka for opening their home to Mum, and being with her during these past couple of months with daily and twice-daily hospital visits, and around-the-clock company in her final week, as well as making it possible for those of us geographically distant to be ‘with her’ for video calls: conversations, laughter and tears; as well as good old sibling reminiscing. Thank you too to my other siblings who were able to travel, at various times, to go and be with Mum. It means the world to me.