Green Vanilla Tea

In a story spanning heartache and humour, Marie Williams writes about her family’s experiences with a terminal illness they call the ‘Green Goblin.’ Her husband, Dominic, is in his early forties when diagnosed with younger onset dementia with motor neurone disease.

Green Vanilla Tea is a story about love and life, in a world where so much is amiss, written as an offering of hope for their two teenage sons.

Marie’s writing started out as a spontaneous response to grief. Amidst the demands of caring for her husband and parenting her sons, writing kept her anchored.

It held still the paradox, where life was both empty and full, together and falling apart and the simplest things were the most extraordinary.

She wrote of love, loss and finding hope in inexplicable times.

After Dominic died in 2007, Marie collated her musings together for the boys – a way to give shape to a story that lay beyond the reach of articulation. So much of what they experienced felt invisible, slippery and without words. They asked her to write about it. To “capture it somehow” and “give their story form.”

Marie wrote with no intention to publish; it was enough that her writing provided a launching pad for rich conversations with her sons. The human experience is intricate – as joyous as it is painful – and they explored it all. Whether chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter or driving to sport games, they talked through every evolving chapter, finding the words and giving their story voice. Her sons’ reflections are woven throughout the pages of the book; something they can share with their own families one day.

This creative act of family storytelling went on to become an award winning memoir, “a story about love: a tale of a strange place – the real world – in which green goblins and hope find a way to live together.”