Grace Tame - The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner: Grace Tame Memoir

Grace Tame has never walked on middle ground.

From a young age, her life was defined by uncertainty by trauma and strength, sadness and hope, terrible lows and wondrous highs. As a teenager she found the courage to speak up after experiencing awful and ongoing child sexual abuse. This fight to find her voice would not be her last.

In 2021 Grace stepped squarely into the public eye as the Australian of the Year, and was the catalyst for a tidal wave of conversation and action. Australians from all walks of life were inspired and moved by her fire and passion. She was using her voice and encouraging others to use theirs too.

The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner is Graces story, in Graces words, on Graces terms. Here she returns, again and again, to the things that have driven and saved her: love, connection and radical, unwavering honesty. Like Grace, this book is sharply intelligent, deeply felt, wildly unexpected and often blisteringly funny. And, as with all her work, it offers a constructive and optimistic vision for a better future for all of us.

To Christian, Kelly, Janet and all the children whose lives were taken, even in part, before they were able to live them to the fullest, on their own terms.

Telling your stories will make us whole again.

I n the European summer of 2014, when I was nineteen, I spent six weeks living in a ramshackle share house in Portugal.

Thats where I met Jorge. One front tooth, a barely live circa 1985 Peugeot 205, stacks of overstuffed photo albums and an equally overstuffed chihuahua named Pirate were his only material possessions, besides the clothes on his back. His jeans were tattered and his white T-shirt had long surrendered its whiteness, but it looked bright enough against his deep olive tan and warm brown eyes, which also offset his shock of salty hair. Whether he was 67 or 76, I cant remember. He may well have been neither.

Jorge lived in the attic. His entire life was up there, hanging in the high humid air that clung to a treasure trove of memories and time-warped talks. Without moving, he was at once above and part of all the rest of us young passing guests. He knew the meaning of life. How could he not, having lived it over and over, in seven different languages, no less?

Although he was asset poor, Jorge was story rich. He really had lived nine lives, or thereabouts. He had played soccer, and been a springboard diver. He had performed in a band that toured through Europe. He had become involved in a cocaine cartel The size of bricks, I tell you! He had lived in New York, fallen in love, and married a Jewish-American heiress to a fortune worth millions. And he had mined for diamonds in Brazil.

In the end, though, he would leave all that behind for the simple pleasure of having nothing more than a wealth of vivid memories and real friends. He would return to his native land, with mans best friend, burdened only by freeze frames of his freedom in Kodachrome.

Jorges irreverent authenticity helped reinforce for me what is truly important in life, and what has genuine value. People. Places. Experiences. Love. And connection.

At least in my naive eyes, he lived and breathed the underrated, overlooked commodity of simplicity.

Looking back as a healthily jaded adult eight years later, it occurs to me that Jorge might have been a conman, which makes him even more of a badass, and adds a delicious layer of irony to this attempt at sentiment.

Then again, some things in life are ultimately what we make of them. There are forces we can control, and others we cant. Pain and joy are inevitable in equally unpredictable measures. Our power lies in how we respond to each, and the meaning we derive from our experiences.

Some of you might already know my name because youre familiar with a part of my story that has been magnified and scrutinised publicly; how when I was fifteen my 58-year-old Maths teacher groomed and repeatedly raped me at my high school. Yet, while child sexual abuse and the lasting effects of it are undeniably traumatic, that time hasnt defined my unfinished experience of life. That man is just one man, among a crowd of people whose paths have intersected with mine. Jorge, the Diamond Miner, is also in that crowd. The value of his connection is such that, despite its brevity, on its own it pervades the darkness. When bundled together with the other similarly positive experiential souvenirs Ive collected over my 27 years, their combined weight overwhelms the bad.

Perhaps the biggest blessing and curse of my life is the open-heartedness and humour I retain to this day. For everything it has cost me, Ive regained it all and more by stubbornly refusing to cut myself off. There is great strength in vulnerability. Ive met my fair share of monsters. Ive met some angels too.

I originally wanted to call this book Diamond Miners and Rock Spiders but my editor wouldnt let me. Nor would she let me call it A Diary of Daddy Issues. Satire is dead and you can blame it on the mainstream. (Stop attacking me, begged my editor. I am going to release a directors commentary, she threatened.)

As far as I see it, we are all to each other a passing ship in the night, a cross-section of humanity, moving through time and space, leaving impressions and sharing lessons. Here are some of mine. Raw. Real. Uncut.