“We were poor, but I loved it,” he said.
But Lindsay’s sudden diagnosis of cancer changed the course of her life and forced her to face a future alone as a single mother.
“I don’t know how I did it,” says Edwards, 60, of her years juggling the roles of student, caregiver and mother. Credit: Scott McNaughton
“I knew Lindsay would die, it wasn’t a secret and I guess I’m a pragmatist,” she said.
After dropping out of her first degree as a teenager, Edwards returned to college to pursue a degree in the arts, juggling the competitive roles of student, caregiver, and mother, which she describes as “every consumer.”
“I just had to finish, to get a job, to take care of the kids because there was no one else,” he said. “I don’t know how I did it.”
One night, Edwards took his two older children to Bendigo to play sports, leaving his two young children at home with their father. Lindsay suffered a seizure, forcing the two children, not yet in elementary school, to get on their bikes and go to their neighbors for help.
“After that, I never left him at home with the kids.”
“You can’t protect children completely. On one level they understood it, but on another, they just wanted to get on with their lives. There’s no guide. In retrospect, I might have done things differently, but there we are. We put”.
Surgery, chemotherapy, and rehabilitation became part of family life. Until his pain and seizures became too much.
After a seven-year fight, the cancer returned and in the depths of darkness, Edwards had to tell his four children that his father would not succeed.
Edwards’ political career began when he accepted a job for former Bracks and Brumby government minister Bob Cameron. Credit: Joe Armao
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It was horrible.”
Ten days before she died, Lindsay went to palliative care. The last thing he did was take out the containers. The family was there the night he died. The staff brought pizza and played games with the children. Then, they said goodbye.
The pain and loss seemed unbearable. Edwards describes herself as simply working, not living. He was 40 years old and worked part-time as an electorate officer for then-deputy Bendigo West and Bracks government minister Bob Cameron.
It was a job he enjoyed. It is important to note that he helped pay the bills.
Edwards had grown up in a Labor family. Born in Maryborough in 1962, the daughter of two union factory workers, politics was openly talked about at home.
For Edwards, politics was an interest that became a passion and eventually a career when she was elected as a member of Bendigo West in 2010, following Cameron’s resignation.
Rebuilding her life and family, Edwards was motivated by her husband’s advice.
“Lindsay said; ‘Live your life. Don’t cry for me forever. Go on with your life and make sure the kids do it too,'” he said.
His advice cut through the fog of pain. Twenty years later, it still motivates her.
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Grief of this kind never goes away, Edwards says. But she has found happiness in her children, her grandchildren, through her work and with her now husband Steve, whom she married 10 years after Lindsay’s death.
“I couldn’t do it without him,” he said.
As a speaker, only the fourth woman to hold the job, Edwards will be the arbiter of democratic debate in parliament. It may require thick skin and will likely force Edwards to occasionally annoy his own side of politics.
“I think I’m fair, I try to follow the rules and I don’t let too much go by,” he said.
“You’ll probably put some people aside. But I don’t think much about what people think of me. I just get up and do the work.
“Maybe that comes from the experiences I had in which you just have to keep working to outdo yourself.”
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