At the beginning of July, Lynne reached out to me via Paul Maginn to ask if I’d host an essay she wanted to write about her late daughter Pippa (October 18th, 1987 – October 12th, 2015), better known to the world at large as Grace Bellavue. I was deeply touched that Lynne chose me to help her honor the memory of her daughter, one of the first sex workers in the world to use social media in the way so many of us do now, and one of the first to show us that we could show our faces without fear; Grace touched the lives of many thousands of people she never met, and her untimely death (just a few days short of her 28th birthday) robbed the world of a powerful, amazing woman. I originally wrote “unique” in the previous sentence, but that’s not entirely true; as you will understand after reading this essay, her mother Lynne is in her own way just as amazing, and her desire to continue her daughter’s work is one of the most beautiful examples of maternal love it has ever been my privilege to witness.
Can death really stymie a spirit that continues to be heard?
I wonder if you have ever set an intention? Did you ever wonder how you were going to start, especially when you have an emotional investment in what you believe in? For myself, it started with fear, then I realised that if you have fear, then there is no love. I was going to be confronted with things I didn’t want to know or feel. I was going to grieve all over again for my beautiful daughter Pippa O’Sullivan, AKA Grace Bellavue: Sex worker, Escort Extraordinaire, real life Advocate, Writer, Social Justice Warrior and observer of all things nefarious locally and internationally. As a wordsmith, her reach was incredible and life-changing to many who loved her. Most life-stories begin with a beginning, but this one starts with an end: A life lost tragically to suicide, which I felt could have been prevented. A tragic loss of SELF! I’ve often felt being a mother is about learning strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed. A numbness of thought told her it couldn’t get any worse, but unfortunately it did for me. My beautiful, amazing daughter gone. A person so full of life, yet extinguished so quickly that I hardly had time to grasp her essence as she grew to adulthood.
I do believe in a life where there are no mistakes or coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from. My daughter was a blessing from the start: half of me, yet unique. She stood out amongst her contemporaries as gifted and talented; her wisdom and her deep understanding of the human psyche knew no boundaries. I’ve often thought, “How can someone that had enough inner fire to light a city die so tragically?” There is no sense or reason to it for us, but Grace had personal reason enough to kill herself, alone with her thoughts and just her cat for company.
While I have no wish to openly talk on her early life just yet, it would be remiss of me not to mention that an escort was what she had always wanted to be. I realised when she turned 18 that if I didn’t support her I would lose the daughter I loved, so I set about accepting what she did and gained a little insight into the industry. It wasn’t something I talked about openly with family and friends at the start, but I gained respect for her written word and the real love she had for the working girls. Grace was a chameleon who lived two lives, one as a sex worker and the other as a daughter who was loved and accepted by her family. She never crossed that line when she was with us.
Grace was one of the first in the world to use social media as a means to be heard; she lived her life as she saw fit, and said just what she wanted to say without barriers. Many who lived vicariously through her soaked up her words as water into the sponge of their mundane lives. Grace had an amazing understanding of the human psyche which she shared with the whole world; her fans often wrote to her when they were depressed, at loggerheads with life and in need of reassurance and comforting words. I saw many she saved with her written word when she was burnt out and had no energy for anyone, let alone herself. My daughter was the kindest, most thoughtful, most selfless and empathetic person you could come across; she crossed barriers to help the disabled in her sex work, worked in the assimilation process with new immigrants, and won real love with her honesty and openness.
As a campaigner I’ve found that advocating for the empowerment of women is a passion of mine, and I stand right behind Grace and all the work she did toward decriminalization. I am a firm believer that to be an expert in anything you need to time to understand your subject, but also to passionately understand the heart that goes with it. My continuation of Pippa’s work began when I spoke in a parliamentary hearing last December with a cohort of other sex workers; she had been dead for over 12 months and I wanted to act on her behalf. I worked within the social justice framework as a clinical nurse for 40 years, advocating for others that couldn’t have a voice, and I drew on that experience to speak about the fact that the rights and safety of sex workers should be seen as an essential component of community expectations about the status and treatment of women. South Australia has long denied sex workers their human rights and the protection that should be offered to paid workers anywhere, but our politicians have begun to realize that decriminalisation strengthens the ability of sex workers to report intimidation, extortion and any exploitation that is taking place. In June of this year, our decriminalisation law for South Australia was passed in the Upper House; we hope that this month the Lower House accepts the bill unopposed and we can see some results that accept accountability and safety for all Sex Workers in this state.
While my daughters life is still fresh in our minds and our hearts, we need to honor her advocacy for the labelled and stigmatised, the people she saved on the streets, her fight for decriminalisation of the sex industry in South Australia, and her reach within the social/interactive media and the sex worker network. I am looking at it as a capacity building measure, where we build on what is working in the world and embrace a “new voice” here in South Australia and further afield. I will be collating her life works into a book in the near future, and have a WordPress account called ouramazinggrace.com in which I would like anyone to put their thoughts/words and perhaps the contact they had with Grace/Pippa and how she influenced their lives.
It is with Grace…… that I accept her life and all she contributed, to continue her final work.
