Now I must talk about my mother. Theresa Helen O’Connor nee Healey. I will be eternally grateful to her for her apparent struggles, working multiple cleaning jobs, to meet her commitments to pay for my secondary schooling. But gratitude is not love. To me she was a stranger and I was just the happy recipient of her charity. Nothing more, nothing less. She was there, but in the background, away from my view with Father Dennehy taking the lead role.

I have no ill feelings towards her, never have, never will, and gratitude a plenty. She did not abort me for which I am thankful, I would’ve missed out on 78+ years of life, and more importantly the horror of the thought that my children would not have been born, nor would my beautiful grandchildren. The world would be much worse off and very short-changed.

I knew nothing about her or her history until the kids started growing. Alan and I went to see a lawyer about making our wills and before we left, he asked if the lawyer was able to investigate my family‘s history. I was mildly annoyed because we hadn’t discussed this before but accepted it without much complaint as I didn’t think there was likelihood of this producing any result. Lo and behold three letters came together a few months later. One from the lawyer that he had had some success, one from her son - my half-brother Peter and one from the priest in my past life whom I had lost contact with over the years. I enjoyed seeing and reading the letters and wrote back to the latter two, for the next few months letters flowed back and forth.

By the time we were connected to my family it was unfortunately too late to meet my mother; I found out she had died just beforehand at age 72. Shortly after the initial letters, another arrived from a priest in Dunedin basically telling me to get back under the rock from whence I came. That I was about to upset too many people. My mother‘s family was large; she had been one of eight children and none knew about me so he thought it would be best if I left it alone.

On reading this letter I was so enraged, and from being a non-participant I became active. The cheek of him. Who in the hell did he think he was? So, I replied to his insulting letter with a furious one of my own and determined that I would not stop until I had found out. An instant return letter apologising. That he hadn’t meant to hurt me, he was thinking of my mother’s elderly brothers and sisters, the old people who might be affected and distressed by the news.

As it turned out, one sister did know about my mother‘s pregnancy and I wrote her receiving a very nice letter back but she knew very little just the fact that she had to have the baby in Christchurch and it was placed in an orphanage. My mother had made her promise not to tell anyone, ever, and she had kept that promise. She wished me the best life has to offer but was very sorry she was not able to help. She told me about a sister living in Christchurch who may have knowledge. I wrote to her, but she knew little.

The investigation took years and as it turned out was very painful, but Alan remained my rock throughout. I communicated with many people from 1981 to 1985 and got snippets of information from each. Some had more information than others and I pieced it together like a jigsaw puzzle...

My mother’s husband was an Irishman named Patrick O’Connor. He was a volunteer and served time during WW1 in the battlefields of Europe until he was severely injured and shipped home. He was one of the permanently walking wounded - carrying scars on both body and soul. Mentally destroyed by what he had seen, experienced and what he had had to do. He died in 1932, aged 38, so I know without a doubt that although I carried his name, he was not my father.

There were speculations about who could claim that title. Two men were possible culprits - one had a dash of Maori blood; did he have my blue eyes? Certainly, there is no hint of Maori heritage in any of my children or grandchildren. The other was William Hickey and Peter said that Barbara was a ringer for him. However, we had also been told that she was a ringer for Alan’s grandmother, Grand Gleave, in England.

My mother’s friend Rosina Kay wrote me that Tess had confided in her and William Hickey was my father. Anyhow there was no confirmation as my mother and both gentlemen were dead, and the secret went to the grave with them.

Peter, my half-brother, was born to Teresa (Tess) Healey and Patrick O’Connor in 1926, and they married shortly after and just prior to the birth of their second son Ian in 1928. Their third son Gerald was born in 1932, six months after Pat died. Gerald died in 1945, at the young age of 14 from Diphtheria.

They were very poor however Peter and Ian received free university education, as was standard at that time. The government provided the tuition free and students only had to pay for books etc. Peter was a Rhode Scholar at Oxford University. Ian became a doctor, married and had three children but died from cancer at age 51 in 1979. Peter was aged 60 when I met him and at that time was in his fourth marriage.

It appears my mother was happy during her last few years; she kept house for a gentleman named Jim Harvie for eleven years. He was a professor at the University of Otago where she also worked, they became close even visiting Europe together. Peter, wasn’t sure about the relationship, he referred to a substitute son and seemed to me to be bitter whenever he spoke of her.

One strange comment about her by Peter, was that maybe I was better off doing the hard yards at the orphanage, because it would’ve been harder with her. But he didn’t enlighten why. Apparently, she was a dragon on school, homework etc. Peter was pleased to get away from her. My thoughts were that it was unusual for a middle-aged man to talk like that to a stranger, even if I was his newly found half-sister. Did her other two children, Ian, and Gerald, feel that way about her? I don’t know as I never got to meet either.

Father Dennehy had also connected me to an elderly aunt who was a nun in a convent in Nowra. I went down a few times to see her and I would introduce myself as Frances Read although she always ended up calling me Diana. She took delight in my visits and was such a sweetie, slightly senile, but appeared level-headed when talking about her family and people she knew in Dunedin. She was close to 90 years old and I felt that I couldn’t tell her the fact that her sister was my mother. I visited about six times, always ringing up beforehand to find if it was okay. She would be waiting for me to arrive, have afternoon tea and a walk around her garden.

The last time I rang I was told that she had recently died. Sad, but considering her age not unexpected. They apologised for not notifying me however they didn’t have my contact details.

After a while Peter told me that he was he was coming over to Sydney University and could we meet. I, of course, said yes however it did not end well. He was over here for two weeks and we met four times, the first two occasions were great but then suddenly I became nervous, tense, feeling the need to be admired, liked, accepted. Maybe I became too pushy.

He, being a professor at the Auckland University, seemed to be dealing with the situation from curiosity, other than any other point of view. I became emotional but he remained professional, factual, aloof. I felt that he saw me as just another housewife in the western suburbs and not up to his standards. I told him it was a mistake and that I never wanted to see him again, he accepted, seemingly without any remorse. I was heartbroken, devastated, actually crushed but determined to put it behind me but it was so difficult, so hard to feel that I had once again been rejected by my own family.

Alan was extremely supportive all the time it took me to recover from this blow and it took months. Each time I found myself thinking of what may have been, I stopped myself and pushed it to the back of my mind – a space that was getting overloaded and moved on. After all I was a very busy woman. I had a full-time job, a husband and four children who all loved me. I was going to defeat this come what may. I persisted, giving it no space in my thoughts and little by little I succeeded.

One day I was conscious of the fact that I have not given him a thought in weeks then months - I was returning to my relatively normal self again. What a blessing. Thank God. As I mentioned God, I have prayed to him all my life, a habit from the twice daily prayers of my childhood.