The day my mother was buried was the day I realised I never really knew her at all. Thousands of people packed into a traditional funeral service to pay their respects at St Brigid's Catholic Church, a red-bricked fortress perched on a hill overlooking Brisbane.
For her wake, we moved on to a large city pub where alcohol, nostalgia and stories began to flow. It was here I stood watching a slide show my best friend had made of my mum's life: Her as a little girl, laughing with friends and with our family in the early years. But then a photo I'd never seen before flashed up on the screen. There she was as a teenager, a wedding ring on her finger, a new baby in her arms and a young man standing awkwardly next to her, his hand across her back. It looked like a family portrait.
Bewildered, I leaned over to my friend who put the slide show together and asked her who was in the photo.
"That's your mum," she smiled, "with your dad, and you as a baby."
"No," I replied, "that's not my dad, and that's not me."
The photo was time stamped August 1973, almost 13 years before I was born. Mum would have been 17. Who was this man? Who was this baby?
My quest to find the truth began.
Today I'm 36, and I am a breakfast newsreader for Southern Cross Austereo in Brisbane. Journalism runs in my family. In his 50-year career, my dad, Mark Oberhardt, was well known as a radio presenter and sports and racing writer for Brisbane's newspapers. While my mum, Cecelia, was the glamorous socials editor for The Courier-Mail during the golden years of newspapers in the 1990s.
Mum got the job when I was aged around six and my younger brother was still a baby. It was a job that meant a lot to Cecelia, the equivalent to being a top social media influencer today. She'd be invited to all the most exclusive parties, gifted luxurious products and wielded power to make or break celebrities.
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