Returning Home: My Journey of a Lifetime

by Amanda McLeod

Overview

Toward the end of the first decade of the new millennium, many people felt a sense of urgency, almost that time was running out. The world is still here five years on, but for many, 2012 was a year of great change.

For author Amanda McLeod, 2012 was marked by a series of events and upheavals that changed her life forever. That year, she lost two of the most precious souls in her life, experienced a health scare, had an operation, was made redundant in her full-time job of nearly ten years, and nearly saw the end of her marriage. As a result, McLeod found herself with a new and different sense of purpose--first, to share her story, and second, to live fearlessly and without stress, still a work in progress. In this personal narrative, she describes her pilgrimage back to her homeland under very unusual circumstances, revisiting her childhood and events throughout her life, leading up to her return home. The result is a tapestry of people and places that were intricately and magically woven into the fabric of her life.

In this memoir, one woman shares the true story of a bizarre and unexpected journey back to her homeland, exploring the divine guidance that made it possible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504311731
Publisher:	Balboa Press Au
Publication date:	01/12/2018
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

LIFE IS A MIRACLE

Mum always told me I was born at 11AM, but I'm not so sure it was eleven on the dot. I've always had the 11:11 thing going on. I somehow think this might have been my entry point, and Mum either didn't realise the exact time or rounded it off for ease of recall.

The fact that I made it into the world at all is a miracle. I'm not just talking about the miracle of conception, gestation, and birth, even though these are miraculous events in and of themselves given the odds. My mother may very well have never been born if it weren't for a twist of fate. And if she had not been born, then there was no way for me to get here. Well, not in my current incarnation anyway. But here I am on Earth.

When you start to look at the bigger picture and open yourself up to all possibilities, you gain a clarity as you glimpse into realms previously veiled. Sometimes awakening explodes in quantum leaps and momentous acts of faith. Other times it gently creeps in while we are doing the dishes, or taking a shower. Sometimes it takes a while to sort the wheat from the chaff and if you fall down the rabbit hole it can get kind of dark and scary there for a while. But eventually you find yourself focussing on what is real and discard the illusion. Sometimes you may even swing from one to the other for a while, until at a certain point critical mass is reached, and vroom! Truth is truth and has an uncanny and an innate and miraculous way of revealing itself just at the very right moment.

A Twist of Fate

Life is a miracle. On so many levels this statement is true. The fact that we come from spirit into matter through the process of fertilisation in itself is mind-boggling when you really think about it. Out of the billions of swimmers racing upstream to penetrate that one ovum, only one "lucky" one makes it. And we are the result of that one in a billion who won the great lottery, or turned up for squad practice.

We are consciousness that came from nowhere to now here as the late great Dr. Wayne W. Dyer pointed out to us on many occasions in his books and seminars. He told us it is just a matter of spacing; nowhere – now here. And after we exit this place we are back to nowhere. Even our bodies are living, breathing, walking miracles with each molecule, cell and organ serving a specific purpose, functioning independently of our conscious ability to monitor and control them.

I am a miracle. Because of one single event in the lives of my maternal grandparents I am here today tapping away at the keys on my laptop telling the tale of how I came to be in this world. Had this event never happened, who knows who or where I might have ended up?

My grandparents met in the Royal Air Force. Grandad was in the RAF and Nana in the WRAF. They were married in September 1942. They later had two children, both girls. The youngest child, being my mother.

I always thought that Grandad was a fighter pilot in WWII. Mum told me this story many times over the years. Either her memory was sketchy on this one particular detail, or she embellished the story slightly to make it sound like it had more impact. Either way, it is just an incidental detail having no real bearing on the actual incident. The fact is that Grandad was not an actual pilot but he did fly in British Bombers during the war as a Warrant Officer and Sergeant. If it wasn't for a twist of fate one particular day during WWII my mother would never have been born.

While Nana was in labour with her first child the plane that my Grandad was supposed to be on was shot down in combat and there were no survivors. Nana received a telegram informing her of her husband's death. I can only imagine the anguish she must have felt as she was about to give birth while trying to come to terms with her husband's death. Grandad had actually taken sudden and unexpected leave of absence to return to the UK to be with his labouring wife, but the flight plan had not yet been amended.

I'm not sure how long later, but Nana received a second telegram informing her of this misinformation and that Grandad was flying to the UK to be with her. Had he been on that fighter jet, he would have been killed in combat along with the entire crew. Hence my mother would never have been conceived which in effect means neither would I. At least not into this particular family anyway.

The "Great Wars", as they are sometimes referred to; WWI from 1911 to 1918 and WWII from 1939 to 1945. I find nothing great about war or its glorification. I know we have Anzac Day and Remembrance Day and all that, and even though it is more a time for reflection to give thanks for our freedoms and the sacrifices our forefathers made to secure those freedoms I can't help feel for the countries deemed as the enemy and how it impacted everyday people in those communities.

It is hard to imagine how difficult life was for the people living in those times. The fact that people were still able to continue to live some sort of normal existence and go about their daily lives has always fascinated me.

My own father, as a child, had to dodge the Germans by jumping into the hedgerows on his way to school. A fact that could now be mildly humorous and used in a Benny Hill type sketch, if it weren't such a dark part of our history.

But anyway, my grandfather made it back to the UK not only for the birth of his first daughter Jo, but was able to contribute to the conception of his second daughter and so the family tree branches extended onward and outwards.

My Mother was born in Ripponden, Yorkshire on the 24th August 1945 just after WWII ended. As my Nana gazed out across the Yorkshire Moors cradling her newborn in her arms she admired the purple heather in full bloom. And so my mother was named Heather. Her nickname became "Blossom". This was never more relevant to me than when I watched the original Highlander movie. Not only did the lead character have the same surname as my now married name, but he affectionately nicknamed his wife, Heather, Blossom.

Mum's Early Years

I don't know a great deal about my grandparents' early life. The little I do know I learned from Mum. My Nana was one of eight children and ee by gum; she was a Yorkshire lass through and through. She had one sister and the rest were boys. She didn't have much to do with her family as an adult. My mother really only remembered a handful of times that she was in the company of aunts, uncles and cousins. The only family member on the maternal side who would visit regularly was my Nana's cousin, who Mum knew as Auntie Ann. The rest of the Hartley clan were 'riff raff' as far as Nana was concerned.

Nana had a Victorian and conservative outlook, as did a lot of folk of that generation. According to accounts of my mother she could be judgemental and narrow minded. She took umbrage to that fact that one of her brothers was divorced and seeing another woman. According to Mum, Nana thought all her brothers and sister were the black sheep of the family. She seemed to disapprove of, or find fault in one way or another, about how each of her siblings conducted themselves or lived their lives.

Years later when Mum reconnected with one of her uncles, who had migrated to Australia, he told her that the Hartleys were all a funny bunch, and had some weird ways. Apparently none of them were really close.

Nana was religious, a Bible student, and church attendee on Sundays. I don't think she continued to attend Sunday services all her life, but she was still a devout Christian, often quoting passages from the "good book" as she referred to it. The fact that Grandad was a complete atheist and yet they had a long, relatively happy marriage beggars belief really.

Mum told me she only ever heard her parents arguing once when she was a child. Apparently it was over some money that my grandfather had loaned to a RAF mate and Nana was not too impressed about it.

I recall as a small child in England going to Sunday school with Nana and sitting in the long wooden pews trying to sing along to the hymns. I always found it a little frightening looking at images of a bleeding man hanging from a cross and could never wrap my head around the boring monotones ringing out, echo like, from the man in black up on his stand at the front of the hall. The high ceilings and clinical atmosphere was daunting to me.

I never felt comfortable inside a church. I was christened in the Church of England faith, but I never really held much regard for religion, and luckily my parents didn't have the same fundamentalist approach as Nana.

Religion has never sat well with me. It seemed ridiculous to believe that the whole world's population, with all its different races and cultures, could be seeded by just two people. I also couldn't wrap my head around why we should fear a God that was supposed to be all loving, all giving, all encompassing. There were far too many contradictions in the supposed written word of the Lord for me.

I somehow sensed even as a small child that there was far more to me being here in this space and time than the local Vicar would have me believe. I didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but it would take me several decades to sort the wheat from the chaff when it came to my spiritual understanding. So I did what many have done in my generation, I turned a blind eye for a while and let the baby prune up in the bathwater until I was ready to take it out, dry it off and give it some much needed attention.

If Nana's side of the family were a mystery, then Grandad's were even more of an enigma. The only thing I know is that he was born in Kent and had two sisters who became some sort of missionaries who went to live in South America. Another thing I find fascinating in view of the fact that their only brother was a complete atheist.

I don't think Mum or Jo saw their aunts or paternal grandparents much, if at all. If they did it was only once or twice. They certainly didn't grow up playing with cousins or having extended family get-togethers. Mum told me that Grandad never really spoke about his family or his childhood. I find it hard to fathom how or why a family can be so closed off and disconnected. Maybe it was because of the war. It can't have been easy living in those times.

My grandparents moved around a lot during the girls early years. Grandad was posted to all sorts of places throughout England, Europe and Africa. Mum had many fond memories of their stay in Aden. Sometimes they would live in houses provided by the Forces and other times they lived in caravans.

They had to travel light, and often during or after another move, Mum would ask Nana where a certain picture she had drawn was, or a particular toy. Nana's response would be that they couldn't take everything with them. This often broke Mums heart, but I guess she had to learn to live with it as part of military life. The fact that Mum had no say about her personal belongings being disposed of very much shaped her life in ways that would not become fully apparent until later in her life, and even more so, after her death.

Another part of military life that left a lasting impact on Mum was the constant changing of schools. She went to fourteen different schools in her ten years of schooling. Because of this she did not develop long term friendships as a child.

Mum and her sister were known as the "RAF kids" and were teased or looked down upon. Because they were ostracised they mainly kept to themselves. They really only had each other so became best friends as well as sisters. Mum often told me about how sick she used to feel with the trauma of having to start a new school in mid-term, and sometimes even mid-week. Her stomach churned as she was marched from the principal's office after having had the pre-admission interview to another new classroom. All eyes would be on her as she was introduced to the teacher and allocated a seat. There would be whispers, giggles and elbow digs by other pupils as they sized up the new girl, the "RAF kid" making her way to her seat.

It was difficult acquiring a solid education, as often the schools had different subjects or teaching styles. Mum loved learning the French language but it was not always on the curriculum. She was in some school choirs and did learn to play the clarinet, but other schools didn't have a musical instrument program.

I think because of the disruption to their schooling my Grandad who was very well read and quite an intellect passed a lot of his wisdom and knowledge on to his girls. They engaged in a lot of home learning. He taught them many things on history, geography and the English language.

They played board and card games and had a very active family life, with trips to lots of different places. Grandad would often pull the map out and get the girls to point to a location, and then they would plan the route and take great joy in arranging and navigating the journey for the family outing.

Even though they were a close family on many levels, Mum spoke about how difficult it had been at times growing up in such a strict and regimented environment. There was extremely high standards and firm discipline to adhere to.

Growing up they weren't allowed to bring friends home from school, or have parties. Their parents were somewhat unapproachable about teenage issues so the girls only had one another to confide in. When Mum started her menstrual cycle Nana told her it is something that happens to females once a month as she handed her a sanitary napkin and belt and said, "Here put this on." Mum had to try to figure the rest out for herself. The birds and the bees talk was never forthcoming either, so like a lot of teens of that era the girls huddled in groups around more knowledgeable peers in the schoolyard to learn the facts of life.

Typical of his Virgoan Sun sign, Grandad was an extreme perfectionist and expected nothing short of this from his children. He would pull them up on grammatical errors and was highly analytical. I used to laugh when Mum told me that as children they were taught to read the dictionary. I guess it didn't hurt them though. Mum was super intelligent and I could always rely on her vast knowledge, even if at times growing up I didn't have the inclination to listen.

As a schoolchild whenever I asked Mum what a certain word meant she'd say,

"Look it up in the dictionary."

If I asked how to spell a word she'd say,

"Look it up in the dictionary," to which I'd reply,

"How can I look it up if I don't know how to spell it in the first place?"

I could never understand this logic.

My grandfather wanted his girls to be well read and intelligent and had very high expectations. The bookshelves in my grandparents' homes were full of atlases, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and wildlife and bird books. Mum knew all the capital cities of all the countries of the world. She even knew all the country's flags.

Mum inherited Grandad's thirst for knowledge just as she inherited his pedantic perfectionism. Let's face it, they were both typical Virgoans. Once when I was a young adult and was playing a game of trivial pursuit with my mother and my husband, she disallowed my husband his answer because he pronounced it incorrectly. Mum was a grammar and pronunciation fiend. It's a good job she never got into computers or the internet, let alone Facebook. She'd have kittens if she saw the misspelled, abbreviated, and slang terms used in that forum.

Despite the strictness my grandparents were kind and loving people. I don't want to paint them in a bad light. But like many of that era, particularly those in the military, they had very regimented ways. I am sure Mum and her older sister have many fond memories of their parents and their childhood. It was just the era of authoritarianism. In families around the world back then children were seen and not heard. You had to respect your elders at all costs. Even at the cost of your own inner guidance and heart. You certainly weren't allowed to have your own opinion, especially if it dared to contradict an elder's view. Strict obedience to authority was the creed.

In many ways this strict upbringing seemingly did no harm. It bred, for the most part, decent, upstanding, well-mannered citizens. But I know now that generations upon generations of this stifled mindset is probably why the whole counterculture of the sixties needed to happen. My sister and I were lucky that Mum was a little more liberal in our upbringing. Still, much of the old iron fist rule remained to some degree even when we were growing up.

My children and I have a much more open and tolerant relationship and I have always valued and encouraged their opinions and points of view, even if I didn't share them. My husband and I taught them to be respectful of others, no matter the age, but at the same time, to respect themselves enough to be able to express themselves honestly. We guided them to be well-mannered, kind and thoughtful individuals, but not at the expense of their own values and beliefs. Sure, we made mistakes and there are things we would do differently had we known then what we know now. I am glad to say that our parenting skills paid off great dividends in producing well rounded young adults with few, if any hang-ups.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Returning Home"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Amanda McLeod.
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Preface, ix,
Introduction, xv,
Prologue, xxi,
Chapter 1 Life Is a Miracle, 1,
Chapter 2 Stranger in a Strange Land, 18,
Chapter 3 Great Southern Land, 39,
Chapter 4 It's My Birthday and I'll Cry If I Want To, 70,
Chapter 5 Little Fish, Big Pond, 97,
Chapter 6 New Horizons, 144,
Chapter 7 We Are Family, 179,
Chapter 8 The Twilight Home, 210,
Chapter 9 The Pilgrimage, 243,
Chapter 10 Returning Home, 268,
Chapter 11 Reality Hits, 306,
Chapter 12 The Breakdown, 340,
Acknowledgements, 371,
Postscript, 375,
About The Author, 377,