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Her name is Kathy, her knees are made of titanium

13 February 2008, precisely 10.03am... Kathy bunches her hands into a tight ball as she self-consciously attempts to fit more of her ample torso into her window seat on the mid-morning flight. She looks up with a ready smile and waits as her fellow passenger places a black travel bag next to her fake-fur handbag, lavender sunhat and walking stick.

"I'm 63 and this is my second time on a plane," she says as she shifts the folded seatbelt arms on the vacant two-thirds of the aisle seat. "Can you believe that? My husband has never been on a plane."

Her husband, her second husband, has remained in their caravan home near the airport to look after their dog and cat while she is in Brisbane for a week to celebrate a grand-daughter's 21st birthday. Kathy has seven children, 22 grand-children and two great grand-children.

Up until recently, she had 22 grandchildren. "I had to go to my grand-daughter's funeral on the weekend," Kathy says, looking through small, green eyes surrounded by a rim of red lids. The grand-daughter was born with cystic fibrosis. She was just 17 years-old when she died quietly in her sleep around two weeks ago.

The 21 year-old grand-daughter's whiz-band birthday party was one the weekend - her birthday is today. "It cost me $150 to change the flight from Saturday to today," Kathy says with a slight shake of her head, her well-gelled two-inch corkscrew curls barely moving a thinned and fair head. The airline didn't waive the fee in consideration of recent tragic events.

One of her sons will pick her up from Brisbane port. He is the 21 year-old's father and has done "extremely well for himself". After years of TAFE courses he gained his Master Builders accreditation and is now flown around the world by big-name companies on big-name jobs. Her son will pay for everything while she is there, including, hopefully, a plate of garlic prawns.

Kathy had garlic prawns last week at the local RSL on her second husband's birthday. When she returns home, she will go back the RSL for her own free birthday meal of garlic prawns. Sometimes, on special occasions, she makes the dish at home.

"I buy a bag of prawns. Peel them. I heat a little bit of oil and garlic (only the bottled variety) in a pan and add the prawns. Sometimes I add a splash of milk to the oil and garlic and make a sauce." She rubs her lips, lost in her own food memories.

Morning tea arrives - a cup of tea, small tub of water and a chunk of cake. "I'm on a meal-replacement diet," she says, eyeing the cake. She has already lost inches from her wide waist. Next week, she will have an operation to reduce her size F breasts. The heavy load no doubt contributed to her need for two new titanium knees a few years ago.

"I have back problem due to these," she says, cupping each breast. "And I couldn't even breast-feed my children."

A very young Kathy met her first husband in a country town on NSW's central coast. She had her first child at the age of 16. She had a total of five children and an abusive husband to take care of before she had reached her mid-20s.

She fled to Melbourne and many months later met her now doting second husband. "He asked me if I had ever picked fruit," she says, handing over her tray of unopened cake to the flight attendant. "And that's what we did - we followed the seasons and picked fruit. We had a lovely time."

They gathered his two children and a couple of her youngest children along the way and eventually settled in their caravan and annex in a remote country town. Her oldest daughter agreed to speak to Kathy for the first time in 2007.

"I could write a book about my life," she says, clasping a hard-cover book by an little-known soft-focus author.

After the trip to Brisbane, after the breast reduction and possibly after another year of free garlic prawns at the RSL, Kathy, her second husband, as well as her precious cat and dog, plan to take the van around Australia.

"Well that was quick," she says as the plane comes to a full stop. "A flight goes so quickly when there is someone to talk to."

 

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