GRAEME HAROLD USHER

As I pen this eulogy, I am sitting in my car looking out on this vast old Chinese cemetery in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The many graves on the hilly slopes sit quietly resting as they have been doing for decades and decades. Many of the earliest Chinese settlers in Kuala Lumpur that used to work the tin mines have found the end to their life journey here. Amongst the influential patriarchs of the city buried here are Yap Ah Loy, Ling Lian Yu and many others. There is also a memorial there for the Nanyang Voluntary Corps, volunteers from Malaya and Singapore who in WW2 built the supply line from Burma to Chongqing. This Volunteer Corps was led by the businessman, philantrophist and de facto leader of the Chinese community in Singapore Tan Kah Kee, who incidentally is the Great-Grandfather of my Singaporean brother-in-law Poh Deh Tong. Tan Kah Kee was the founder of Jimei Schools (now Jimei University) in Fujian China, The Chinese High School (now Hwa Chong Institution) in Singapore and also Xiamen University, one of the most prestigious and selective universities in China.

No, I am not here to meander through a soul seeking journey. More on a practical note, I am here waiting to pick up my kids from their new school which is about a 1 km walk from where I am parked. It is exactly an hour before school winds up for the day; and no, I am not a sadist wanting to walk so far to the school gates. Its just that so many dedicated parents have got here before me and this is the closest spot I could find. Just in case this deplorable pick-up-from-school situation gives Kuala Lumpur a bad name, let me just say its a new school, Chinese parents are crazy and the school authorities are trying their level best to sort out a smoother and workable traffic flow. Undoubtedly, next week I will not be sitting here this early.

But to the point of this blog entry; a man named Graeme Harold Usher. My uncle, my mothers eldest brother, born 15th May 1939. He was buried 2 weeks ago on the 29th of Dec 2007 in Baradine, New South Wales at the age of 68. I did not know my Uncle Graeme all that well, living in different continents and all, but what I did know had a deep richness about it. It is not often that a life of another leaves you with that richness and it is a wonderful thing when that can happen.

Graeme was named Harold in memory of his Uncle Pat. In fact he did not know this until very much later in life, perhaps no one thought to tell him. He did not know the man he had heard of by what turns out as a nickname 'Pat' was actually Richard Harold Usher. Pat died at a young age of 20 after being kicked in the head in a football accident. I was told that many of both Catholics and Protestants attended the funeral of this young lad. During those early years the community was very much divided along these religious lines but the tragic death at such a young age of Richard Harold brought the community together. My Great-Grandfather Michael Usher and my Great-Grandmother Belinda Agnes Ross had 7 children; Edna, Richard Harold (Pat), Vivian John(known as Uncle Viv; he went to war in New Guinea), Nada, Marion Isabel, my Grandfather Leonard William (known as Len) and Beryl Agnes. At present, they have all passed on except Aunty Nada who still lives in the Sundale Retirement Village in Nambour, Queensland. She and a good friend Rene moved there after both their husbands died many years ago even before my parents were married in 1965. Both Nada and Rene were childless. Nada would have just celebrated her 101st birthday this past 26th Dec 2007.

I would safely say that my Uncle Graeme was one of the most intelligent persons I have ever met. Naturally, he was well read and had a great understanding on the pulse of what was going on around him, in his country and in the world. When I last met him, Australia was heading to its general elections and Graeme was reading 'Kevin Rudd, The Biography'. He was a cantankerous old fella, but is one of the only 3 people I know who have what I term "a twinkle in their eyes". He was born with a condition called pyloric stenosis and had to be operated on when he was just 8 days old - in 1939! This is a condition where there is a blockage from the stomach leading to the intestines. It occurs more often in boys, is often hereditary and occurs more often in firstborns. He went from a birth weight of 8 1/2 lbs to 5 lbs on the day of his operation. When he was 5, he contracted meningitis, and when he was 11, polio. This meant a 1 year stay in Brisbane General Hospital 100km away where he was put on an "iron lung". His mother, my Grandmother Iris, could only visit him once a month.

I have always known him to walk with a profound limp, a result of the polio. He had to wear surgical shoes or none at all, so often he used to go barefoot like so many young Aussies do these days. Going barefoot would give him greater security in terms of the contact of his feet on the ground. Once while having lunch with my Mum in Mooroochydore, a waiter came over with a complaint from a patron about that restaurant being the type of establishment where one had to wear shoes. Graeme's reply "I have 2 options, go barefoot or put on my surgical shoes" drew many an apology from the poor waiter. Imagine a lifetime not being able to wear slippers!

Graeme was what you would call a lab technician. He and his wife Dr. Weisia Wielebinski (her actual name is Wieslawa Wielebinski) owned and operated a pathology lab in Lane Cove and had another lab in partnership with some others in Paramatta, Sydney. My Aunt, another wonderful character herself, was born in Poland. Her family had been sent to a workers concentration camp in Germany before being offered a passage to Australia in the post-Nazi era. They had actually earlier been offered a place in Argentina, but when they went to get their visas, they found that their places had been 'hijacked' by those with connections in high up places - this is another story in itself. Anyway, for some years my Aunt was Director of Pathology at what used to be St Margaret's Hospital in Sydney. She used to get up just after 4 in the morning, spend some time looking through a microscope and assessing results before heading off to the lab in Paramatta to assess and sign test results, then to their Lane Cove practice to do the same thing, then to the hospital.

Graeme and Weisia had 4 kids - Michael, Anna, Kathryn and Christopher. They all love animals and it is no wonder my cousin Anna is now a vet. I remember on one of my stays in their Lane Cove home overhearing my Aunt say to her kids "We'd better get those snakes out of the bathtub before Grandma comes down from Queensland next week" in a cool very matter of fact kind of tone that so typifies her. It was in the backyard of this house that my siblings and I had a whale of a time on the first trampoline we had seen. Incidentally, it was also at this Lane Cove home that in 1986 my Mum smashed her heel and resulted in her not being able to walk without crutches for 8 months. My Mum had dropped me off in St. Peters in Brisbane to begin my Year 12 and had proceeded down to Sydney to visit Graeme and Weisia. As 3 nights a week my Aunt had Directors meetings at the hospital and only be back by 8:30 or 9:00pm, my Mum had wanted to cook some fried rice so Weisia could eat with them at home instead of going out. She opened what she thought was the pantry door, but the door opened into 'nothing' (there were steep steps there) and she fell feet first onto the cellar floor - but that too is another story in itself.

When Uncle Graeme was 4, my Grandmother Iris used to take him to the rail motor station in Brooloo (Brooloo no longer has a station) where the family farm was. She would pass him to Mr. Mills, the rail driver, who would look after him and pass him to his (Graeme) Grandma Helen Wilbraham at the Nashville Station in Gympie. No doubt the little 4 year old boy would have sat on Mr. Mills lap driving the rail motor (nowadays known as the Mary Valley Rattler - a tourist train). My mother Helen Isabel was named after this Grandma Helen Wilbraham who was named after her Grandmother, Helen Ellen.

I get the feeling that Uncle Graeme loved the land. There is talk that he did not get much support in that regard from his own father who deemed him 'unsuitable' to work the land because of his bad leg. As soon as Graeme retired, he sold his Swansea property for about AUD1 million and with the proceeds purchased a total of 4500 acres in Baradine. On reflection, my Grandfathers Brooloo property of 650 acres seemed small in comparison.

Baradine is about 500 km from Sydney, a 6 - 7 hour drive. When I asked him why he bought land so far from Sydney, his reply was "It was what I could afford". In the same conversation he told me "I am the laziest person on earth". He also said "I needed to buy the property to keep me out of mischief!". Well, this lazy mischievous person loved his property and despite his physical difficulties got the place organized and at the time I spoke to him 4 months before his death, was running 600 head of cattle (mixed composite / hybrid) on the land, had 11 paddocks and 20 dams. He had 1400 acres with share farming crop (mostly wheat) which would have been able to give him another 4 paddocks. The border of his property ran at 27km. He did all this on his own while my Aunt, one of those workaholic type people, at the age of 67 became a civil servant. She is now the senior pathologist in the whole of northern New South Wales and is based in Tamworth, a 2 hour drive from Baradine. This meant she could go to Baradine at weekends and Graeme could visit her during the work week. When Weisia thought she would apply for this job in Tamworth, it was Graeme who suggested to just go see the Doctor doing the hiring first. At his urging, she did. As it turned out this Doctor upon receiving her said that in his younger days, it was while attending one of her lectures in St Margaret's that he decided to go down the pathology line of medicine. Not surprisingly she got the job!

About 18 months ago, Uncle Graeme found out that he had cancer of the oesophagus - as if he needed more medical issues to deal with. I think he suffered greatly under the treatments but as much as he could, would have tried to have that twinkle on. Even in his post-treatment days, he went back to his beloved Baradine farm. We were so honoured to have him, Aunt Weisia and cousin Christopher over in Kuala Lumpur for my sister Dorene's wedding in Sept 2007. Even then, his eyes would light up when he spoke of Baradine. By his demeanour you would not have thought he was in pain, but he was in fact healing from a broken rib sustained due to the severe coughing he had gone through earlier. No doubt his crutches were eating into his ribs. True to form, I was told while at the KL International Airport on his trip back to Sydney he walked all the long way on his crutches, refusing a wheelchair. He would pass on just 4 months after that trip.

About a month before he died, he found out that the cancer had spread to his bones and that he would only have a short time to live. The way he put it to my brother Greg was "They tell me I have between 5 days and 3 months". He lived for another 2 weeks. He had time to set his affairs in order and spend time with his loved ones. In advance, he organised the details of his own funeral. I was told his funeral was lovely and simple, just as you would have expected of him. As Greg subsequently said to me "He is ready to go and not everyone has that".

Farewell Uncle Graeme.

At my sister Dorene's Wedding in Kuala Lumpur; Sept 2007

Graeme, Weisia, their youngest son Christopher, my sister Sheryn, her son Mitchell and my mother Helen.

Picture at the beginning of article; Graeme 10 years of age in 1949 on his horse 'Peter Pan', a year before he contracted polio.