Today we began rebuilding the garden bed Nonna is letting us use. I forgot how much I love playing in the dirt, even if it is removing fossilised cat shit.

But naturally, my thoughts went somewhere bittersweet.

Cont.

I speak a lot of shit about my dad, because he did a lot of shitty shit - but one thing I don’t often get to mention is the fact that he was a very talented landscaper/gardener.

If my mum wanted something, she’d sketch it out and he’d build it, almost intuitively.

He won awards, he was his most patient with me when he taught me how to properly plant seedlings, why he positioned plants certain ways.

I truly believe he had enough talent to make something out of it, but substance abuse always/trauma got the better of him.

He never thought he was good enough. He could never be proud of his work. I think about how consistently he was let down by adults & the system.

My dad went to a boys home at a young age, which later turned out to have a pedophile ring attached to it. He absconded from that one,

And was consequently sent to the Institute for Boys in Tamworth. It’s known as the ‘school for killers’ bc at least 35 homicide have been linked to people who were sent there in their youth. Dad rarely spoke of his time there, but there’s plenty on Google.

Anyway, in the way that things seem to work out for me quite often - I’ve found an area of justice work that really fkn speaks to me. Victimology, state harms and now the concept of Justice Reinvestment.

What work can I do to show today’s little Stephens that they’re worth something. How can I work with them to maybe prevent them from going onto victimise their kids - little Josie’s? How can I get the state to stop treating youth who offend like a ‘problem’ to be locked away?

I don’t know, apparently discarding fossilised cat shit really makes ya think.

My dad has done terrible, unforgivable things. But his behaviour didn’t come out of a vacuum. I can at least understand that and feel for his child-self that lingered always.