Bernie Breen

I looked after De Porres house in Redfern three days a week. I remember lunch times, very busy, many people came to the house to share lunch and stories over a cuppa. David Sheller like many days, came to the house, loved to talk, got into trouble a lot and challenged every one of us. One day, he was asked to leave the house, because he was causing chaos. Big Chris with the bags, Greg and Ray Baker, couldn’t take too much of David. I took him out the back and into the back lane. He didn’t want to leave straight away, so I sat with him on the kerb and we talked, well he did most of the talking which was fine, he started talking about his son whom he hardly ever saw, as he was talking, tears started rolling down his cheeks. This was a different David to what everybody knew of him, being tough, always looking to punch some-one. I guess he wasn’t so tough after all, his shield came down, just for a few moments, and it was very endearing to see David as a dad. He touched my heart. I started to realise what Cana, through Anne and Brian, instilled into this community. After that touching moment, I guess David came back to the now moment, pulled out a container from his bag, inside the container was a needle and some powder, he said, “Do you want some?”