Verna Fisher 

Reading on the couch with twin toddlers, Ari traces the ladybird on my arm and Alice asks, `Why do you have this beetle, Yaya?’

Looking down at my tattoo, I whisper `She brings me luck!’ 

I fib. 

Life’s been tough, bringing me big love and unspeakable losses. Has the ladybird set me up or let me down? I know that I’m 91 years old and in constant pain, and long ago came to realise the ladybird doesn’t bring luck – she suggests hope. Hope, that life is wondrous, exploratory, meaningful, free. I first met the ladybird when I most needed her. I want the twins to love the ladybird too, for them to dream of, and have, abundant lives.

Later in my room, I think back to working at the Brockhoff biscuit factory in Port Melbourne during the war. I can feel again tightness in my chest. Like others, I felt the strain of war. I’ve often wondered what life might have been like if I hadn’t left school at thirteen to work. Dad was a sustenance worker building roads for food vouchers and Mum was a bookie taking bets to make ends meet. No point thinking about past choices, it’s different times to now, eh, I say to myself.

Looking out the window, where autumnal leaves somersault, meandering in the wind, I recall the day I met Evelyn. I was taking butter vats to the third floor. There she was, some five years older, a stand-out with caramel skin, honey chocolate eyes, a mop of curly hair, a cheeky smile, and unusually for a woman at the time – a tattoo!

Quick to notice my gaze, she enthusiastically explained, `Do you like it? They say if a ladybird walks across your hand, she brings you luck! So, lucky me!’ 

The ladybird was navigating its way across her hand in the web between her thumb and pointer finger. 

I couldn’t help but grin and say, `Oh, I’m Iris, yes, it’s lovely, it reminds me of that song too – Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home… Does she bring you luck?’

`Who knows, I hope so!’ she quickly replied `And I’ve just met a new friend, haven’t I?’

How I loved her! We were adventurous, bold and inseparable. Our friendship buffered us at a time when the future was uncertain. My swelling tears prickle, even now 60 years later, I regret how the end of the war took us on separate paths. 

Considering my ladybird, an 84^th birthday gift from my daughter, I wonder if I have done the best for my children. Foibles and all. Have I lived my best life? Has hope broken the poor patterns of my family? Has this companion ladybird – my dream pet – favourably influenced my outlook and choices? I think so. I wonder about Evelyn too, of her life, and if she also thought about me. I am assured, at least, of the constancy of that ladybird in our lives, a perpetual reminder of vast possibilities.

Copyright Verna Fisher, November 2024. All rights reserved; this intellectual property belongs solely to Verna Fisher.