Nadine Williams

Exhilarating journey of an eclectic life

This is the week that I reach the formidable milestone of turning 70.  I never thought it would happen, but time moves right along and here I am enjoying myself with a week of activities whereby I have managed to involve my family and most of my friends.

In  seven decades I have jammed in much change and adventure and no-one could accuse me of being lily-livered. So let me highlight a few points I have made at the three major celebrations this week.

I have had three husbands, three children and three major careers. I have built four houses from scratch and I have five gorgeous grand-children.

The sun has shone on my life, but it has caused some very long, sad shadows, too. Mistakes? There are more than a few but I have learnt the hardest lessons through them.  I have had a fair share of bad mother days, but a pile of career successes to compensate.

With a large intimate family of 11 and a larger extended family of 25 persons, I am so rich in human relationships and kinship. When I look at my family, I see my past, present and future. And over this past week as I welcomed my close friends and reunited friends – I also see my past, present and future.

My children – raising them from infancy to adulthood  – with all the mixed blessings that entails, have been my greatest purpose in life. In reflection, I loved my mothering years and I am so proud of how they are living their adult lives, the choices they have made and what they are becoming – because life is a long continuum. They are beautiful human beings.

In reflection, my most precious birthday gift in my whole life was, without any doubt, my 16^th birthday when my mother, Florrie gave birth to my only sister, Anne, who followed three brothers’ births. I am the eldest and Anne, is not only “sis” but a beloved friend. What a wonderful gift and as she said this week, she loved pretending I was her mother when I took her shopping – and vice versa of course. I pretended I was a very young mother of little Anne Victoria.

Recently, I was talking to my 95-year-old father and asked him if he could remember when I was born and he threw his hands to his face and said “Florrie said, Oh, it’s a girl! We wanted a boy.”

I then asked him if he loved me regardless. His whole face broke into a smile and he said with feeling “Oh yes, you were our little missy.’’

It was such a precious memory for him and so wonderful to witness in his dotage, how much he loved me as a little girl.

Turning 70 cannot be fobbed off as being the new 60, because the body has aged and even though I still snap at my son if he dares to say I am elderly, “little missy” is now an older woman.

The selfie I took this week reveals jowls just like my mother. Behind me on the whole, etching those wrinkles the sunlight blatantly exposes, is a blessed life.

My marriage breakdown in my 20s shattered not only my dreams of happy ever afters, but also my health and happiness for years.

I found myself where I never expected to be – as a single mother.

Another marriage, and another divorce 14 years later ushering in a long 20 years of singledom until I married my third husband, Olivier, in 2008.  The saddest chapter was losing him to cancer and caring for him in his deterioration until death.  I could hardly bear the profound grief which consumed me.  The loss of happiness was excruciating. Now I find myself where I never expected to be – a widow, and alone for the first time in my life.

On the career front I have been a shop assistant in my father’s electrical shop, a secretary, a high school teacher, a professional fund-raiser, quest organiser, public relations consultant, and lastly, a journalist, columnist and editor  during a 20 year career.

My career  at the Advertiser was an exhilarating journey of growth and change and amongst countless different roles and writing assignments, two stand out – drawing up an agenda of women’s news for the male editors of the day to shape into editorial policy and establishing the women’s issues round to write stories which reflected women’s lives.  The other major achievement, the story which had the biggest impact, was breaking the State Bank story; that our bank was driving South Australia to bankruptcy.

At the other end of the news spectrum I enjoyed a few years as celebrity columnist writing up the gossip surround the stars and juxtaposing this with serious columns on social change. Whilst cultural issues writer, I met my future husband Olivier.

One quantum leap into the unknown was writing my memoir of our first trip to France where I fell deliciously in love with Olivier – and I combined this risky enterprise with working full-time at the Advertiser in a new role as editor of the supplement Looking Forward – the highlight of my long career. My book, From France With Love, published by Penguin, became a best-seller and we sold the film option, an exciting dream for a few years.

The news of the moment is that despite two rejections from publishers over the past six years – I am again writing a manuscript which I hope will be published. It will be the story of returning to France last year with my dear friend Jane, who lives in Sydney and our various experiences and misadventures as I tried to throw off the mantel of grief which had all but snuffed out my joie de vivre.

Therefore I am not afraid of failure and, as with my website, www.nadinewilliams.com.au, I am willing to take risks.  My name, Nadine, means “hope”, yet I am bracing myself for another rejection.  But beginning to write again after closing down through grief is a success in itself. When I complete the manuscript of 100,000 words, whether a publisher wants my story or not, that huge project can never be considered a failure, but a growth phase in my older life.

So, I felt proud sharing these chapters of my life with my friends this week.  It has been a fruitful life for a “lassy” (another name my dad called me in my teens) who was frightened of her own shadow at 20. Dad didn’t believe in educating me, so I educated myself  completing year 11 history and shorthand before achieving matriculation English in my late 20s. It took eight long years in my late 30s and early 40s to achieve my Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, but this was my entrée to a career in journalism which has metamorphised my life.

At 70, I am healthy and content. Grief rides in tandem with happiness as only the grieved will understand. Balancing this all up, I do feel a fulfilled woman.