Hopefully her family want to find her too
Decades of living on the street and abuse at the hands of those she loved made Noeline McCarron wonder if she could keep going. Then someone offered her a helping hand.
Leaning on a floral-print umbrella like a cane, Noeline McCarron hobbles towards a couch and sits quietly.
She has a slight hunch in her back and leans forward as she sits.
In her left hand she's clasping onto a trucker hat. A tropical shower looms outside as dark clouds gather and she's come prepared.
Thongs expose her battered feet which peek out from the bottom of a long black dress.
Her skin is worn and she speaks slowly, punctuating her words with a husky, persistent cough.
At 53, specks of grey are starting to emerge through her thick brown hair which she keeps short.
Now 16 months sober, Noeline says her senses are coming back to her.
She can smell and taste again and is observing things she had never seen before. More importantly, her state of mind is the best it has ever been.
"I'm enjoying everything," she says. "Getting up without a hangover, looking around and seeing four walls. I'm doing something I can be proud of."
Noeline moved to Australia in 1981, migrating from the North Island of New Zealand.
She married soon after and started a family in Sydney's western suburbs with her husband.
But the relationship didn't last.
"Things just didn't work out," she says.
"It's hard for me to say but I had to abandon my children to get out of domestic violence.
"I just ended up roaming anywhere."
the story continues at
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/03/09/3711884.htm?site=farnorth
