A Mother's Story (24 page)

The wake was held at the Tyabb Cricket Club. The club had kindly given over the premises for the occasion, and it could not have been more perfect. Everyone was there. People from the local community, all the friends and family who had travelled from far and wide. The sun was belting down and people spilled out from the clubhouse and onto the oval itself. Local cafés and restaurants had donated all the food, a brewery had donated kegs of beer and Mornington Peninsula vineyards supplied wine. The generosity was overwhelming. I remember feeling so touched and thinking, how can I ever repay these people? How can I ever repay them for what they're doing for me and Luke today and have done since his death?

To this day, I still don't know how it all came together – who had organised it, which people had driven it – because I still wasn't in a place to really take it all in. It all just happened. The mood was, if not ebullient, at least upbeat. Luke had touched so many people in his short life, this was a celebration of him. It was a cleansing of this place too, of sorts. A reclaiming of it from the horrible cloud that hung over it.

I remember having so many people come to me to talk that I never got into the clubroom. I know there was no point at which
I didn't have a glass in my hand. And I didn't get around to speak to everyone, because it all happened in such a blur, but I noted all of the people who had come from far and wide and will be forever grateful to them for their support.

In the weeks immediately following Luke's death, I was inundated with flowers and cards from people all over the country. People I had never met before but were moved by mine and Luke's story to send flowers, a note or a sympathy card. Every day for weeks I would get huge piles of cards in the mail. Some were addressed to ‘Rosie, c/- Tyabb Cricket Ground', others to ‘Rosie, Flinders College' and many still bore the simple address of ‘Rosie, Tyabb'. Every single one of them reached me. As did the hundreds of bouquets of flowers, some from the top local florists, others hand-cut and hand-delivered. More flowers than I had space to accommodate. There were flowers on the back patio, the front patio, all over the house. And more cards than I could read. I used to scoop them up and put them in a special basket that someone had given me expressly for that purpose.

In the fullness of time, I would sit down and open and read each card. Beautiful poems, heartfelt messages of sympathy, complete strangers pouring out their hearts, writing lengthy letters about how deeply affected they had been by Luke's death and my apparent stoicism in the face of it. If only they had seen me behind closed doors. I tried my best to send a personal, handwritten reply to each card and bouquet of flowers I received. I just felt such an enormous debt of gratitude. I wanted everyone who had reached out to me to know that I didn't take any of their kindness for granted. Even now I still feel that I haven't told enough people how much I appreciated what they did. That I've missed people out who I should never have missed out. That I still need to thank every single person even if I don't know who
they are because every single one of their gestures, no matter how large or small, made the world of difference to me.

At some point during Luke's wake, I became aware that numbers were thinning, and I became aware that the junior players were arriving to start their regular, scheduled cricket practice. And I took a moment to stand and watch quietly as training began. And while it could have triggered a rush of negative emotion, I derived a sort of comfort from it. Comfort that this summer ritual continued. It was a perfect summer's evening on a nondescript oval in a tiny corner of this sprawling country, and cricket practice was underway. Just as it would be underway on countless other ovals in countless other towns all over the country. And I felt happy that people were getting on, that normal service was being resumed, that despite the fact my world had been shattered irreparably, everyone else's was continuing to turn. There was, oddly, a sense of comfort in the constancy of it all.

It was now early evening and as I looked around, I noticed my family had all retreated home, as had the New Zealand contingent. Even Rosemary, a friend of mine from Sydney who had come down expressly for the funeral and was staying at my house, had headed back with them. A core group of my Tyabb friends were settling in, and it was only when Rosemary came back to the clubhouse to find me that I realised I ought to head home. It wasn't fair to leave her to deal with the extended Batty clan on her own.

So I gathered together a handful of friends and we went back to my house, where we carried on drinking and sharing stories. Evening turned to night and one by one, people left. Rosemary excused herself, saying she had an early flight the next morning, and went to my room to go to sleep. I sat up talking with my
brothers, all of us becoming increasingly loud and unintentionally belligerent.

And I guess there was a point where we had been talking and emotions had been stirred up, and I remember being really upset and angry and shouting at them. All of a sudden my dad came storming out from his bedroom, telling us all to get to bed. We were suddenly five years old again, shrinking from his raised voice and skulking off to our rooms.

After a day spent holding it in, my outburst with my brothers had been little more than a release. An irrational emotional response to an imagined slight over which I ultimately had no control. And so I crawled into bed after everyone had gone to sleep. I had just buried my son. I had just experienced my own son's funeral. And I felt so desperately alone, so desperately alone. I didn't know what to do with myself here alone in the dark, finally unable to keep it all at bay. No more distractions, no more people, no more events. Just me and the darkness.

And my friend Rosemary had anticipated this. That's why she had come from Sydney and offered to sleep in my bed. Because when everyone else had gone to sleep, she was with me on the night of my son's funeral, and she held me while I sobbed. We went to sleep holding hands. That closeness I'll never forget of being with someone rather than having to be alone – that was special.

When I reflect on the last eighteen months of my life, I'm struck by what a remarkable ride it has been. In a short space of time I've become a household name. Rare is the occasion I can walk through an airport these days and not be stopped by a complete stranger. Sometimes – and disconcertingly – they will ask for an autograph, while other times they will excuse themselves for approaching me and tell me how much they admire me. Other times still they will ask me for a hug, or use the occasion to tell me about their own experience as victims of family violence.

I have become a lightning rod for people and their myriad problems. And I don't say that with anything other than the utmost humility. It is humbling in the extreme to have people entrust you with their darkest stories. It also takes a toll.

In the year and a half since Luke died, I've been named Australian of the Year and feted by a prime minister. I've been indirectly responsible for the establishment of a royal commission in Victoria into family violence. I have been appointed co-deputy chair of the Council of Australian Governments' advisory panel
on family violence. I have spoken to the country's top CEOs, addressed the National Press Club and met people from all over the country at speaking engagements that have taken me from far north Queensland to suburban Perth. I've lost count of the number of media interviews I have done. From
Four Corners
to
The Today Show
, from stories by Helen Garner in
The Monthly
to appearing on the cover of
The Australian Women's Weekly
. It's been a tumultuous, extraordinary, slightly surreal time.

I have a kind of fame – but for all the wrong reasons. I am a strange sort of celebrity – but because of how I got here, it's a celebrity status that nobody wants.

I am the person that no one says no to. I am the bereaved mother whom everyone indulges, because there but for the grace of God go us all. I was a mum in middle-class suburbia, in a nice house, raising a little boy at a nice school. I was everyone and no one. And now I'm Rosie Batty. No one would swap places with me for even a second. People sometimes talk about how strong I am. How brave. I'm not sure about that. I don't see myself that way. All I can do is go forward. This is the journey I am on. This is the direction I have decided to take my life in. I no longer have a son to live for, and so I fill my life with creating a legacy for Luke.

I was a mum, that was my meaning and purpose. That's why I did everything. Chose a lovely school, a lovely neighbourhood, made sure that Luke had great male role models in his life, made sure he explored every opportunity he wanted to in terms of team sports, Scouts, swimming and drama. I just wanted him to be happy – to try to make up for the black cloud hovering over us that was Greg.

Anyone who is a parent knows you get up in the morning, you go to work, you do all the things you do because you want
your kids to have a good life. But my boy has gone now, and I don't have a job to go to. So I have to replace that absence with another reason to get up in the morning, to fill my time with being busy with things that mean something. I have a different purpose now. I may only make a little difference, but a little difference is a start.

When I stood on the podium in front of Parliament House in Canberra to accept the award of Australian of the Year, I dedicated it to Luke. Because everything I do is for him. So that I don't forget him. So that his eleven years in my life – on this planet – will count for something. So that no other mother has to suffer the same fate as me.

Am I deliberately keeping busy to keep the grief at bay? Perhaps. Am I terrified that when my tenure as Australian of the Year finishes, the phone calls will stop, the speaking invitations will dry up and the doors that have hitherto flung open whenever I knocked will remain stubbornly shut? Most definitely. But in the meantime, I feel like I have found my calling. Out of the most tragic event imaginable, I have found purpose. And if people want to think that makes me a bad person or some kind of oddball, then there's not a lot I can do to change their minds.

Part of the reason I think I seem to cope far better than people expect – and far better than I ever would have expected I could – is because I have this new sense of purpose in my life. If, by raising community awareness of family violence – and getting men to recognise that this is a very basic issue of gender inequality – I manage to help one woman, then it will have been worthwhile. If I serve as inspiration for only one victim of family violence to summon the strength to call a crisis line and take steps to remedy her situation, then I will have achieved all I set out to do.

Of course, if, along the way, I also play a part in changing legislation or shifting societal attitudes towards family violence, or thoroughly reviewing the way we fund and support frontline family-violence service providers – from emergency shelters to counselling services – then that is a good thing too. Because it is fundamentally unacceptable that we can't live in our own homes safely, that people who are close to us can terrorise us and make our lives miserable and we are not doing enough about it. I hope I have forced that uncomfortable truth out into the open.

For you only have to consider the statistics to understand what a pressing problem family violence is for this country. One woman almost every week dies at the hand of a current or former partner. One in six women will be a victim of family violence in their lifetime. And of these one in six, at least half of them have children in their care. If we had one woman a week dying on the public transport system, we would be up in arms – so why aren't we similarly horrified about family violence deaths? Is it simply because they go unreported? Largely overlooked by law enforcement, widely dismissed by our judicial system and routinely written off by our media as ‘just another domestic'?

If we were to broadcast the family-violence death toll on the TV news each night, like we do with the road toll, would that shock us into understanding how prevalent this violence is and how pressing is the need for us to do something about it? If we were to put up posters, like we do with road safety campaigns, would that work? And why do we put so much money into those kind of campaigns and virtually nothing into a far bigger, far more pernicious problem?

I would never seek to diminish the suffering of others, but isn't it telling that the nation can get behind a one-punch (coward's punch) campaign – and in one state, at least, completely
overhaul the liquor licensing system – and we can't even speak openly about the problem of family violence?

It's not a problem that is going to be solved by one woman. Nor indeed by one government advisory panel or department. It's a whole-of-society problem that requires a whole-of-society solution.

The former governor-general Quentin Bryce recently delivered a damning report into family violence in Queensland. Called
Not Now, Not Ever
, it found that 180 cases of family violence were reported in Queensland every single day. Speaking to the report and its findings, Bryce said: ‘The truth is that domestic and family violence is caused by unequal distribution of power and resources between men and women. It's about the rigid gender roles and stereotypes that characterise our society.

‘For all of us, we must be asking ourselves, “What can we do as neighbours, family and friends? What can each one of us do about this appalling scourge in our society?”

‘We don't want to confront these things, we want to turn away and say, “That's not my business,” but it certainly is everybody's business.'

This is why I have established the Luke Batty Foundation. This is why I have launched the Never Alone campaign. So that we can start to have the conversations that will finally drag this issue out of the shadows. And that is why I speak out and tell my story. I've spoken at more than 110 events to more than 35,000 people since January 2015. I know that my and Luke's story is just one of many, many stories of family violence out there, and I know some people are critical of me, saying that maybe I'm too much in the public spotlight, or that I should grieve in private. But I'm not going to do that. And I will not let my grief limit or define me. For reasons that are beyond me, I am the one that
people seem to want to hear from. And I know – people tell me – that I inspire them and give them courage. But what people don't know is that speaking out also empowers and inspires me. It's bittersweet, knowing this has happened because of Luke's death, but I feel I am making a difference. That gives me the impetus to keep going, which is important, because my sense is that if I keep doing this, and keep the public spotlight on the issue of family violence, things will change. Because they have to change.

Ken Lay, the former Victorian police commissioner and my co-chair on the advisory panel on family violence, and the former senator Natasha Stott Despoja, chair of the family-violence advocacy group Our Watch, gave a joint address to the National Press Club last year. Ken told how for many years violence against women has been one of Australia's filthy little secrets. Natasha called it a national emergency. In Australia, it is both.

I sat with Quentin Bryce in her Brisbane office recently. It was just after her report had been released in Queensland. In anticipation of my arrival, she had baked a delicious date and walnut teacake. As well as being whip smart and determined, she's a generous woman and an excellent cook. She congratulated me on the momentum I had helped to create around the subject of domestic violence in this country, but worried that it could dissipate just as quickly as it has developed. And I share her concern. Today's headlines can so easily be tomorrow's fish and chip wrappings. And we owe it to our mothers, sisters and daughters to make sure that doesn't happen. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make some real change – but we need to pull together as a society to make it happen. Because while I can travel around the country speaking at every community event on the calendar, while Ken and I can chair an advisory panel and do interviews, and while Quentin Bryce can
author reports and campaign, real change will only come about when society accepts this is a fundamental, entrenched, systemic problem. And just as importantly, when governments prioritise it as an issue, when legislators start to craft new laws or alter existing ones to properly deal with it, and when – crucially – we have greater accountability of perpetrators.

Because the way things are now: we are enabling the violence. For as long as we as neighbours or family members or friends continue to turn a blind eye or, worse, write off incidences of family violence as ‘just another domestic', then the physical assaults, the psychological torment, the unfettered harassment and the killings will continue. The media has a role to play here too. How many times have you watched the evening news and seen the murder of a woman in her home downplayed as a ‘domestic dispute' – as if death at the hands of a partner is somehow less serious?

Murder is murder. Is it any less terrifying if it is committed by someone you know intimately? I'd suggest it's quite the opposite.

We talk a lot in this country about the war on terror – and certainly, the eradication of international and home-grown terror threats is a worthy cause. But what about the terror that one in six women are living daily? What about the terror that means they are too scared to leave the house or too scared to go home? What about the terror that seizes them every time their partner walks in the door – never knowing what mood he might be in, what eggshells will have to be trod, what evasive action they are going to have to take to protect themselves? Or worse, protect their children?

What about the terror of the woman who is too scared to leave because either she or her children have been threatened with death if they do? Or the terror of the woman who has been so
totally stripped of financial independence that even if she wanted to leave, she wouldn't have the means? What about the terror of the woman whose partner has so carefully, methodically, isolated her from her friends and family that she wakes up one day and realises she has nowhere to go – no one to turn to?

Another thing we need to address is this simplistic idea that women in family violence situations only have themselves to blame, because, after all, why don't they just get up and leave? I hear it all the time. I've heard people say it about me. And it makes me so, so angry. The ignorance from which this attitude stems is frankly staggering.

I rather famously had a stoush live on air with a TV presenter who, in a throwaway comment that was breathtaking in its ignorance, suggested that there were no excuses for women victims of family violence – especially those with children – to stay in a relationship. ‘They just need to leave,' he said.

So let's just firstly call this what it is: it's victim-blaming. Once again putting the onus on the victim to remedy the situation. Inherent in that is an acceptance that men are fundamentally violent, fundamentally incapable of controlling their base instincts, and therefore it is up to women to take all the precautions and accept all the responsibility. It is up to the woman to report it to police, to pursue it through the courts, to take out an IVO and report again to the police when it is breached – as it almost inevitably is. It's up to the woman to go into a refuge, to change her identity, to flee interstate or overseas. All of which means leaving behind your friends, family, your home, your job, your community. And all the while, the perpetrator is allowed to get on with his life, to go down to the local pub and, without a word of protest from his mates, describe himself as having ‘women troubles'.

More crucially, let's pause for a moment to think about this notion of ‘leaving'. As anyone who has worked on a family-violence crisis helpline will tell you, that's when victims are at their most vulnerable. The point of leaving is when perpetrators of violence are at their most dangerous and unpredictable. That's why Greg killed Luke. He had come to understand that both Luke and I were no longer under his control. He began to appreciate that I was no longer in fear of him – that we were pulling away. And so he killed our son – in a final act of control and vengeance. He killed Luke so that he would win, and so that I would suffer for the rest of my life.