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  On a planet where now over half the human race live in poverty, to be born into a family that has a good home is extraordinarily lucky. But to be born into a comfortable home where a child is free to think and given every opportunity to do what they want is no small miracle. For even the children of the very few rich people in the world are sometimes prisoners of their parents will.
  
  The first born  
  I was born at around 1 a.m. on March 14th 1965 at the Mercy Maternity Hospital in East Melbourne (formerly Emerald Hill) in Melbourne Australia to Stephanie and Glynn O’Collins.
  
  As the first O’Collins born of that generation and honored with the names of my grandparents (Frank O’Collins and Anthony Pryde) I entered the world with the hopes and dreams of the family that one day I might live up to my namesake and also pursue a professional career of distinction.
  
  My father (Glynn), like all his brothers and sisters was a successful professional. All of our cousins had pursued academic and professional distinction at some point, so it was expected I would at least achieve some level of academic qualification. It was not to be.
  
  My brothers and sisters  
  I am blessed to have three sisters and one brother, who in order of age are Stephanie, Ellie, Phillippa and William. To date, William is the only one who has married and had two wonderful children.
  
  For all of us, growing up in Kew, Melbourne was an incredible opportunity which we all generally took for granted until our parents divorced in the middle of the 1980’s. We had our own rooms at Grange Rd, a tennis court, swimming pool, library and multiple areas in which we could entertain ourselves or friends in private.
  
  It meant each of us were able to develop and pursue our own hobbies and interests, but it also meant we also spent a lot of time in our “own separate worlds”, even as children. For myself, it was the constant obsession in creating things, in massive drawings of future cities and technology on sheets of paper. For Stephanie, Ellie and Phillippa it was their crafts and creations.
 
  There were always people over on the weekends, sometimes dozens, but for every dinner at least one or two. Our mother (Stephanie) loved to entertain and was a wonderful host. She had a natural ability to put people at ease (as well as put people down if she wanted) and enjoyed the company of friends and family. As a result, my earliest childhood memories are mingling with adults during the many parties and discussing the nature of the world and various issues.
  
  There was also a downside for this lifestyle, for while our mother loved to entertain, our father (Glynn) sought refuge in his beloved game of Golf. Sometimes frustrated by the remoteness of the relationship and the general selfishness of five spoiled children, our mother was infamous for her quick witted and cruelly cutting remarks. As any child knows, you only have to be called “stupid” or “fat” once by a parent you love and it stays with you for the rest of your life.
  
  As the eldest and a boy, I was lucky enough to escape the worst of her occasional anger. However, my sisters were not. They got both barrels and so cutting and deep were her remarks that they have stayed with my sisters for their whole life. Rather than come to their aid, or even stand up to such episodes, I chose to withdraw deeper into the worlds of my own creation.
  
  My mother passed away from Lung Cancer in 1988 at the young age of 43. In hindsight now, I understand her frustrations and actions were motivated out of love and a lack of intimacy in her daily life. She was and remains a strong and good spirit. My hope is that all of my siblings will find their own peace with her and understand how and why she did what she did.
  
  My mother Stephanie  
  Imagine if you will a person of such charisma, grace and natural beauty that when they entered any room every person in that room turned to admire them. This was the effect my mother had right up until her death.
  
  While she could be a tyrant to her children, she could also exhibit the kind of logistical expertise of a General in organizing fetes, birthdays, functions, social events and charitable activities. My mother showed no fear towards any other person and when motivated to achieve was capable of creating pure magic.
  
  But what few people in my family ever truly understood was the deep and personal faith of my mother. Unlike many who prostrate themselves in front of religious leaders as a public display of their faith, my mother always kept her religious views and her daily prayers a secret. Later on, I found this profound privacy and daily honor and compassionate thought to others odd, given the number of openly religious members of my family. In the end as she slowly wasted away in hospital she once told me she kept it private because only ourselves and “God” know what is in our hearts and minds.
 
  While even today there are those within our extended family who still cannot find it within their hearts to give peace to her memory for divorcing my father a few years before her death, I will always look upon the memory of my mother Stephanie as the guiding light, the impossibly powerful spirit that demonstrated to me that in life nothing is impossible, that each of us have the capacity to make an impact on this world.
  
  My father Glynn  
  In a world of greed, of desperate need for fame, of murder for the sake of a few dollars, I felt an anger and frustration towards my father for many years.
  
  Here was a professional man, while providing everything I ever wanted as a child who was not like other professional fathers. When others spoke of who they knew, of their various accomplishments, my father would stay silent. When others would openly talk of their wealth and their prowess at business, my father would happily walk away and talk about sport, or his passions of native fauna and flora.
  
  Growing up and in particular as a teenager, my father represented the “old world” of honor, loyalty and humility- the kind of virtues that saw good people finish last. He seemed stuck in an older age, before “Greed is Good” and the obsession in fame when people actually cared more about values than about success.
  
  It was only later on in life after I had fallen from a great height in my professional life that I truly understood the power and wisdom of his personal values. By then, it was too late to undo the damage of my own actions, but my father still found it within himself to forgive me.
  
  When he died of cancer a few years ago, I missed the chance to finally say goodbye. Even so, I felt we had made our peace. I knew he did for he passed in hospital, closing his eyes and smiling in the end. To die smiling with no regrets. Even in death my father found a way of teaching a lesson of essential value. How many of us will die with a smile on our face like he did?
  
     
     
     

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