Sure enough, Queensland Ballet extended the deadline for Li and he hastily put in an application. The wheels in his brain had started turning. We just had to wait until the interview early the following year. I could hardly bear it.
In the new year, Sophie became deadly serious about finding work. She thought she might look for work in the real-estate industry. It was going to be a big step towards independence and, more than anything, Sophie wanted to prove she could do it.
‘Good luck, darling,’ I said as she set off down Toorak Road towards the cafe where she was to have a job interview. She just waved happily at me as if there was nothing to worry about.
When I saw her later that afternoon, she was elated. However, the interview hadn’t gone well, she told me: the interviewer had been uninterested and left after a short while. That was the news I’d been dreading, so why did she look so upbeat?
‘Mum, a man and a woman were sitting next to us. They saw how that guy treated me and they were appalled.’
The couple turned out to be from a local real-estate company that handled prestigious properties in Melbourne.
‘So the guy leaned over and said if I’m ever interested in a job, I should give him a call!’
‘Really, darling?’ I said as my heart lifted. ‘That’s marvellous!’
Sophie did call him, and she was determined to take her chance without any help from us. With no real prior experience to speak of, she started working for the agency a week later in an administrative role. No gap year for this girl! But my God, it was tough. Although they knew about her hearing loss and were to be commended for taking on an inexperienced graduate, their office wasn’t suitably equipped for someone with Sophie’s disability. As the days went on, she became more and more disenchanted.
‘The phone goes all day, Mum, and it’s impossible. The phone connector to the implant isn’t automatic – there’s a long delay to connect and sometimes the wait is so long that I miss the call. It’s so frustrating!’
Sophie was coming home depressed and exhausted. Over the ensuing weeks we saw her new-found confidence plummet completely. It was devastating. How could I go to Queensland, if it came to it, if this was how challenging life was going to be for her?
What our resourceful girl did, however, was join Hear For You, a volunteer organisation that had been founded and was run by deaf people specifically to support deaf teenagers. She volunteered to help at a Sunday workshop, mentoring students from years 7 and 8, and loved it.
‘Mum, if I can support and inspire these young hearing-impaired teenagers to be the best they can be, I’ll be so happy,’ she told me.
Maybe this would be a better, more rewarding option for her in the future.
One day Sophie came home looking very excited. ‘Mum, I’ve been offered a paid job at Hear For You, running the program for Victoria!’
‘How fabulous! Will you take it?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I think so,’ she replied. ‘I really love this program.’
I thought it was fantastic, exchanging a stressful job in the hearing world for one where she was discovering another, happier way to navigate her life. Finally! Maybe this would be her niche – bridging the divide between the deaf and hearing communities. Wouldn’t that be wonderful! I said to myself.
After our January holiday, Li heard from the recruiter that he was shortlisted for the position at Queensland Ballet. His interview a few weeks earlier must have gone well. In preparation for the final interview, he pored over Queensland Ballet’s annual reports, reviews, articles and anything else he could get his hands on.
‘Mary, the company has a very small budget, their financial position isn’t strong. Whoever gets the job has a huge amount of work to do to take this company to the next level,’ Li told me with a serious expression. ‘Without funding, none of my vision and dreams will be possible.’
One thing I knew was that Li wouldn’t shy away from a challenge, and sure enough he started to draw up one-year, three-year and five-year plans for the company. He became obsessed. He was flown to Brisbane to have his crucial interview with the selection committee. Incredibly well prepared, he presented an exciting vision to make Queensland Ballet a global-standard company and an Asia-Pacific powerhouse in dance.
‘How did it go?’ I asked him when he called afterwards.
‘I think it went okay,’ he replied. ‘But you never know. I’m fully prepared not to get it.’
‘Are you sure you won’t be building birdcages again?’ I asked, half-jokingly.
He laughed. ‘No, no. Never.’
I was relieved.
A few weeks later, Li was offered the job. My dreams for him were coming true. In my heart I believed that there were very few people in the world who could do what he could do, both business-wise and artistically. He would improve the company’s fortunes and put Queensland Ballet on the world stage. His mind was swirling with ideas, and he was champing at the bit to get started.
My mind was in a spin too. Brisbane! Even without the lure of the ballet, my McKendry clan were there. The children were thrilled for their father especially. They were unanimous: ‘Dad, you have to do this. And Mum needs to be with you.’ They knew it was important for the next stage of our lives.
Tom would stay in Melbourne and finish his degree. Bridie was nervous about moving schools, but she would be going to the same school as Matt and Brig’s girls so she wouldn’t be alone. She should, in fact, have been going off to St John’s School in Houston, but now the timing was wrong.
While we weren’t that worried about leaving Tom behind, as he had always been independent, we were particularly ambivalent about leaving Sophie. When she sensed our concerns, she had nothing but reassurance for us: ‘Mum and Dad, don’t worry about me – it’s time for me to live my life in my own way. I need to see what I can do for myself. We can always Skype, right?’
‘Yes, we can do it every day, sweetheart,’ said Li.
‘Don’t worry about us,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll be fine. Sophie and I will look after each other.’
I knew he would be a caring brother for Sophie but Li could see I was still unconvinced.
‘Mary, we have never said no to opportunities,’ he said. ‘Instead, we have always said, “See what you can do with that opportunity.” Haven’t we?’
And that’s when I knew this had to happen. It was true – we’d always been quite firm in making big decisions. Suddenly it seemed mad to have any doubts. I looked at Li, who was once again on the brink of something wonderful, and felt the great excitement.
Once the decision had been made, Li resigned from Bell Potter Securities and gave his business to his long-time assistant. He then went on a tour of Asia, Europe, Cuba and North America to renew his ballet connections. He came back full of motivation and ideas, even though he wasn’t officially commencing at Queensland Ballet until January the following year. He couldn’t help himself; he was so eager to get started.
Eventually, it was decided it would be best for Li to move up to Brisbane in May to get to know the company and start planning future programs. Bridie and I had planned to move there at the end of the year, but we decided to go earlier too, so Bridie could settle into her school before the new year started, and I could give Li a hand.