Hi, I’m Chrissy. I’m a wife, a mother of two, and a grandmother of five.

There’s always something going on in our lives even now that my husband, Norm, has retired. I write mostly poetry and teen fiction and sometimes dabble in other genres just for fun. I also like photography so I often use my own photos when presenting poems.

My garden is my little sanctuary of peace, relaxation, prayer and often fun. My husband of forty-two years, on January 10th, 2023, is my constant companion and our five grandchildren keep us young.

With a limited education but a lot of determination, hard work, and encouragement from my husband, I entered university to graduate with a Graduate Certificate in 2004 at the age of forty-seven. This experience then propelled me into doing something more with my hobby of writing and ventured into
publishing short stories and poems in local and online magazines and newspapers. This I continued to do for about five years.

Late in December 1998, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia but my passion to help teenagers with eating disorders increased. No health issue was going to keep me from writing my first novel –  ‘Out of the Shadows – Jenna’s Secret’, a fictional story of a young girl who crossed the line.

During the editing and preparation of the teen novel, my health deteriorated even more and I spent much of my
time in bed and housebound. Nasty symptoms of Fibromyalgia began to emerge with often terrifying outcomes. It was also at this time, Arthritis became apparent as a secondary condition.

Being a Christian doesn’t make me perfect and I wasn’t coping at all with pain and the many other symptoms I was experiencing at that time. I built a bond with a group of pray-ers that were there for me and with me through this time. I experienced amazing improvements in my health but being bedridden was making me depressed.

A good friend suggested I wrote down my thoughts in a journal. Writing again became my daily motivation but this time I recorded my feelings and thoughts poetically. That journal was the inspiration I needed to write another book. A few months after a post-illness trip to America, my poetry and words of
encouragement was published in my book ‘Glimpses of His Glory’.

Poems from the Heart of Our Mum was the inspiration of my father, Bert, who was saddened that his wife’s poems had never been published before she passed away in 2011. I published this book on her behalf – the author of those poems, Ruth Barrington (nee Lawson). My siblings David, Philip, Joy, and myself also contributed a poem, letter, or article to reflect our impressions of Mum’s poetry in our lives. Ray Law, Mum’s church pastor, wrote a poem for her funeral and this too has been included at the end of the book. Unfortunately, because Mum wrote in ‘old English’ I was only able to have a couple of her works edited by a UK editorial serve. The works were written by my mum directly as she wrote in her journals.

My husband and I cared for my father after my mother’s death in October 2011 until December 2016 when my own health crashed. Dad entered a nursing home nearby so I could concentrate on my diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. After two major surgeries in August 2017, I have recovered amazingly quickly but my lifestyle has changed a little and I’m less active. My father passed away at the age of 96 in July 2021.

In December 2019, my husband retired from full-time work. We sold up and moved up the coast where the weather has always been more suitable for my health issues. The day after our furniture and belongings arrived, I started volunteer work at the Koala Hospital as a tour guide. During the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns, and the knockdowns of life we never knew before, I expanded my volunteer training at the local Koala Hospital to include rescues and koala care.

Early August 2022 I needed surgery to repair the right hip muscles – the gluteus minimus and gluteus maximus muscles. I spent almost three weeks in hospital followed by eight weeks in a wheelchair.

In the coming months, I will be undergoing yet another surgery related to my medical conditions. This surgery will be probably sometime in August 2023 – about twelve months after last year’s hip muscle surgery. 

I hope you will continue to read my latest poems, reflections, and stories during the next few months as I await surgery and the following weeks of rehabilitation.

Chrissy Siggee

First written June 26th, 2018 – Latest update June 26th, 2023.

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