There but for the grace of God go I
- Carmen’s favourite quote
Slide show at Mum's funeral
TLink to slide show at Mum's funeral. Click the link then click the Preview button (top right)
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Euology
Mum's Eulogy:
Some called her Carmen, others called her Margot, but I called her Mum. Mum used to say there are two sides to the story and the truth. And with Mum you never know what you got. And the truth gets in the way of a good story anyway. Here’s what Mum told me.
Carmen Marguerite Loos, born in March 1934, was one of ten children born in Colombo to Dutch Burgher parents. Papa was a raging drunk and their greatest indulgence was that each of them got a new pair of shoes at Christmas. There was little money for food but the neighbors had chickens and the boys used to nip over the fence and steal one. Then you’d hear the neighbor scream “Those bloody Looses!’ Their house banked onto a swamp with tortoises. They’d attach candles on their backs and charge people to see the swamp lit up with moving candles. Mum wanted to be a nurse but papa wouldn’t sign the papers.
So she decided to move to London and papa - no matter what he said - couldn’t stop her. She started at secretarial school before becoming a hairdresser working with Vidal Sassoon. It was in London that she met Darrel Fernando, a handsome phd student studying anatomy.
“Tell me how you met Dad” I’d ask again. “I was being chased by a bull in a paddock. Dad was wearing a red coat and he waved it so that I could get away.” I believed that for way longer than I should have.
Dad said he met Mum on the steps of the opera house. She was under a red umbrella and he thought ‘I'm going to marry her.’
Dad was, mum’s words, a rogue. They were fast friends. He’d tell her about one girlfriend knocking on the door and he’d have to feign illness to get the one he was with to leave out the back door. “I knew that but I still married him. Idiot.” There’s a slide show later and you can see them at parties, stolen street signs, whisky on the table. Dad’s with his fiancee and his friend, Carmen is in the middle of the group, then they’re talking and the fiancee’s looking worried and then there’s no fiancee.
They moved back to Sri Lanka where Mum introduced her fiancee Darrel to her father. He reached out his hand and Papa wouldn’t shake it. They then married in secret at a registry, which - at the time in Sri Lanka - meant you were excommunicated.
Dad was a vet in Sri Lanka and was also teaching. An incoming nationalist government, and the insistence on renaming the bones - which are Latin - was the sign to leave. They applied everywhere and got offers from Canada - but they heard it was cold - and Sudan which was hot. Fantastic! They were all packed for Sudan when a letter came from Australia for Dad to set up the anatomy department of the university of New South Wales medical school.
They came during the White Australia policy, when you had to show proof of your european heritage. Dad came as an important professional program and was one of the first dozen immigrants of color into Australia.
It was a tough start knowing noone. But Mum and Dad were beautiful and funny and charming and worked their asses off. If we were at a party and I wanted to find one of them, I’d just look for a cluster of people laughing and leaning in and they’d be at the centre of it.
Dad went off to work and Mum was left with the kids. I’m not sure what inspired her to start the restaurant, at a time most mothers didn’t work. She had talent and ambition but most of all I think it came from growing up poor and not wanting to be dependent on anyone.
The restaurant - Tikiri - was the first Sri Lankan restaurant in Sydney. At a time when the most exotic food you could find was Chinese, it was revolutionary. Tikiri was a special place. The uni students working there, worked there all the way, then their sister or brother worked there too. There was no staff turnover but they kept Mum on her toes. Brendan, who was a bit of a pothead at the time, brought in a marijuana plant mostly to torture Mum I think, who thought she’d get high form being in its vicinity. It was at that time that two policemen came in for takeaway and Mum grabbed that plant, holding it out and running down the corridor to hide it.
At home Mum and Dad would argue about who was cooking. Dad would sneak in and make his dahl full of curry leaves and spinach and spices and Mum would say “When your father cooks dahl you have to weed it!”
Mum became the main breadwinner and Dad encouraged her in her work. It was through her business that they built Liguria Street. Mum designed it closely with the architect.
This was just one part of Mum’s ingenuity. Dad was smart, booksmart, but Mum was clever. With a bit of flirting, she could get anything done. She’d get a plumber to quote on installing a toilet. Lean in and ask him the name of that part and where to get it. Then she’d do the work herself.
Mum had me at age 33 and Ren at 35. In 2005, when Ren’s eldest was born, she was 71. I only realised that yesterday. Because they were so youthful. Mum and Dad would have the three kids over for the better part of the day. After an hour, Dad would go to the gym. I’d tap out at about two, maybe three hours, but Mum would be there, completely energised by any small thing they did. She was an entirely present grandmother.
I think it’s easy to look back at parents who worked and notice an absence. But for me, what I saw, what I learned, was dogged determination, despite the odds, to make the best life for yourself and your family. Mum always told me - as did Dad - never to be reliant on a man. Until they died they never had a joint bank account. For me, she was more present than any stay-at-home mum could be.
As a mum of a teenager, only now do I understand how much Mum did that was unseen and unappreciated. She took us to Kandyan dancing class, tap, jazz, ballet - clearly hoping we’d be graceful. We weren’t. Piano classes - which at least in Renuka’s case paid off. She was incredibly religious and wanted us to share her faith. That also did not go well. The priest visited Mum at least twice at primary school because 8 year old me kept questioning him. She’d take us to church and Ren would read a book. Every time the word root came up in a bible passage we’d google. Then as teenagers she’d ask if we were coming to church and we’d shout out from the TV room. No. and she’d shout back ‘You have no God!’ and slam the door. When she got back none of us had moved from the couch and Dad would ask ‘What did God say; She was not amused. She struggled with bipolar and found comfort in the church. My parents were always adopting people into our home. Whether it was Kamini, whose parents had to return to Sri Lanka and then lived with us for three years, my cousin Mitchell who lived with us during uni, or the girl they met on the plane who had nowhere to go.
Mum showed compassion not through words but through action. She visited disabled people in their homes and did catheterisations, helped elderly neighbours, she volunteered at the children’s hospital with kids with cancer and later volunteered for over a decade with the asthma foundation. None of these came with recognition or glory. It was quiet, often thankless work. Her favourite saying was ‘There but for the Grace of God go I’ and she led with that empathy in all things.
At home Dad was the good cop, and Mum, with much resentment, was the bad cop. She was also Sri Lankan and still had more conservative values. Once Ren thought Mum was snooping in her room so she rolled up tea leaves in rolly paper and hid them in her underwear drawer. Mum found them and lost it. Ren said ‘It’s only tea mum!” Dad and I thought it was funny. Mum did not.
Dad worked in England every four years and so we went on holidays and travelled in a VW Kombi campervan on the hippie trail in convoy from London to Sri Lanka by way of every major city in Europe, through the Middle East, Afghanistan, to Pakistan. Mum said we were going to see Indians and I remember going over the hill but there were just brown people. No feathers, no teepees, nothing. Dad would hold up maps without details, just a red line, and Mum followed wherever he led. They say life is an adventure but ours really was.
As someone who’s been perpetually single, I went on a lot of holidays with my parents. They met me when I worked in Cambodia, UK and Sri Lanka. As an aidworker, I worked with incredibly interesting and talented people. But the most interesting people, the people I most admired most, were my parents. I’d be there three times a week at least - free food may have had something to do with it - but they were my favourite people.
I was a very ill child. My parents were always worried they would lose me. I remember them both being very present - at the hospital and the restaurant and home. It was the 80s so no one knew where we were until the street lights came on, so admittedly the bar was low. I’d be studying and Mum would walk into the room, kiss me three times on the head and leave. Or bring me a cup of tea.
It was over cups of tea that Mum shared her wonderful stories. “So I was working at that centre - you know the centre down at La Perouse where they work with kids in the community to teach them skills. Anyway there’s this big Aboriginal boy called Oliver with all these earrings and tattoos and they said stay away from him so I just walked right up to him and said “Should I be scared of you? Should I?” And he said “No.” And I got him a job as an electrician but then tools went missing and he thought he’d get blamed so he ran away but every mother’s day he leaves a red rose at the gate.” Now, let me tell you how many times I have tried to find Oliver. Does he exist? Who knows? People get upset, saying she was lying, but at a certain point I didn’t care because her stories were beautiful.
After Dad died, it was Mum that convinced me to stay and foster a child. We had tenants in our old house and she pretended she was doing a site inspection with the real estate agent but she was really taking the caseworkers around to inspect the house. Which is to say that she was really committed. When Anthony came to us he was ten and it was just before lockdown. He never got the best of Mum. I often wish I could share Anthony with dad. But what I got to do was share Anthony with Mum for her last six years and that’s a real gift. Their bond was something that renewed your faith in people. He got the best of her that she could be and he got an Archie who enjoyed him and loved him unconditionally.
As Mum got dementia, her grasp on memory and the conflagration of reality would dominate her world. Stories are the way we make sense of the world and dementia makes no sense. It is a cruel disease that takes us one memory at a time. I want us to remember her life, not just in the way it ended but in the way she lived it - selflessly, with empathy and compassion, with warmth and humor, and a driving conviction that we must hold out a hand to people in need because there but for the grace of God go I.
We will all miss you Mum.
Timeline
Gallery
Memory wall
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I remember we often ate at their Indian restaurant in Randwick ..
We also went to the UNSW events with Daryl .
Some memories to add and photos will follow 🩷
Family tree
Favorites
Service
Please no flowers. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to her favourite charity. See 'Donate' link below.
Online link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhpotMlWtvg
Donate
A direct link to donate in her name is below.
https://events.thesmithfamily.com.au/fundraisers/CarmenFernando
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