“With a clenched fist resembling a bronzed frozen chook, she feared no one, and things went well. A few hours in, though, I needed a quick break for a coffee and a wee, but she was having nothing of it!” writes Kindness columnist ANTONIO DI DIO. 

History bounces around. It’s 1993 and a small medical practice in downmarket Redfern. Most of the patients are unemployed, or worse, indigenous and unemployed like Jimmy. 

My mum was beyond comparison, the worst medical receptionist of all time. We were at the bottom of a 15-storey public housing tower architecturally designed to crush the human spirit.

House calls involved trips from Bondi to Kenso to Newtown, but some of the scarier ones involved just catching the elevator or schlepping the stairs, with a bag full of Medicare-issued opiate injections and recently released Long Bay Jail prisoners checking out the merch I clutched tighter than my bag in kindy

Still, it was good. Once the punters knew you were one of Dr Kelly’s, they’d mostly leave you be. Their knives and stares were as nothing to his acid wit and gruff affection, and those of us starting the journey in his rooms were under his protection. It was like working for Gandalf. Loved, loud, intolerant of fools.

It’s 1788 and a few miles down the road Jimmy’s ancestors see some European ships in a place definitely not called Botany Bay, and History ensues. The butterflies of fate must have pulled a hamstring, with their exertions that day.

It’s 1926 and dad doesn’t want to go to his first day of school, scared. It’s 1972 and I feel the same. Dad didn’t get to go, I did. Eventually, I learned to spell butterfly and interconnectedness and chaos theory. Also pretentious and get back to work.

In 1993 I did some house calls with Bernie and questioned why he so rudely helped himself to something from their fridge upon arrival. “Son,” he said, “you inevitably learn more about a person’s mental health from their fridge than from your poorly wielded stethoscope.” Old school, brilliant, wonderful human. 

As was his long-suffering receptionist, Aunty Barbara. She was so calm in any given crisis that when Bernie advised that the only time Barbara missed Mass at Lane Cove was in 1943 when she led a crack team of French Resistance girls, armed with nothing but bad accents, in smuggling Allied secrets in the baguettes in their bicycle baskets, I believed the lot. 

In that same 1943 mum and her scared teen sisters saw terrifying men in a big ship land in their harbour. Historians say it was the Allies winning the war. Mum remembers it differently and bonded firmly with the women she met here who remembered 1788. 

One Saturday I was charged with running the show and Aunty Barbara was not around, presumably assisting at Mass or organising freedom fighters, and my mum volunteered to sit at the front desk and tell people to sit down and figure out roughly what order they were to be seen. 

With a clenched fist resembling a bronzed frozen chook, she feared no one, and things went well. A few hours in, though, I needed a quick break for a coffee and a wee, but she was having nothing of it! 

Every time someone walked out of the office she’d intone the single word “Next”, and point at some unfortunate, like she’d seen done on TV shows. By noon I was a decaffeinated wreck with a bladder full enough to go back way before 1788 and extinguish the great fire of London.

“Mamma mia!”, said I, simultaneously quoting dad and Abba. “Whatsa matter you?”, I complained, still steering clear of the ham fists. You will see every one of them, now, she said. Nobody misses out. And no whining from her bambino Antonio. 

I knew she and the family never saw doctors back home. And that when they got a fever in those days, the awful could happen. Less than half of their siblings had made it to 10, and she would not tolerate these little Aussies waiting, and if I was late getting my devon sandwich and cannoli (glorious combination) then so be it. 

She loved those 1788 women and their grandkids in the clinic, and I was beyond lucky to see them. Loss and pain can make you bitter, or make you better. 

Dr Kelly used his privilege and decency to champion his patch, mum used her hurts to help anybody. Ultimately, whatever side of the harbour we were on, in 1788 or 1943 or every day in between, our unique capacity for love is limitless. 

Our indigenous Australians were so decent, dignified, mum was honoured by knowing them, even after all they’d been through they connected and shared. They gave her optimism, and me, too.