I had waited for this call for 30 years. You don't know how to respond. You think your heart will break at the thought of never seeing your mother again. You can't imagine your world without her. Do you have the knowledge to live without her?

When Mum turned 70 I broke down crying thinking it would be her last birthday. I cried buckets every birthday, Mothers Day, Christmas.

How much time did I waste thinking these thoughts each significant day every year.

When Mum turned 88 she had a sudden onset of dementia, after losing her second husband, Neil, and then four months later her faithful little puppy Mitzi. I watched my confident, caring, beautiful mum slowly fade away. Dementia is cruel.

We went through all the stages, from her being too unsafe to live at home, to care in hospital, to being handed over to 24/7 nursing. I started having to make decisions for the strong woman who had once been a businesswoman. I prepared myself for the day when she would no longer recognise me.

Mum said: "If I don't know who you are, then what's the worth of living?"

I was amazed to see her turn 100 in October. How I wished I had asked more questions and listened more when Mum's mind was clear.

My mum, Elisabeth Chandler, was born on October 9, 1919, in Landshut, an hour's drive from Munich in the German state of Bavaria. Details are sketchy.

She came from a large family. Her mother was deeply religious. Her father was a well respected man who was likened to the mayor of Munich, a physical man who climbed a mountain on his 70th birthday. They were concerned about justice, respect and caring for your neighbours.

Their school was 15 miles away, and the children skied there through the snow in winter and walked in the summer. Mum loved to read books, loved to sing and wanted to travel.

In her 20s she was caught in a blizzard and ended up in hospital. I am not sure if she was pregnant, but after that she was told a sentence that breaks a woman's heart: You will never be able to bear children. The only time she spoke of this was when I asked her why she had no children. It made me feel so sad, and I grieved for her loss.

Mum was a trained school teacher, spoke fluent English and was an opera-trained soprano.

At the age of 27, just after the war, she made the wild decision to sail to Australia and arrived at Thredbo, where many migrants were sent to work in the lodges.

Although mum was educated and had qualifications, they made her a cleaner of the toilets. Humbly, she sang as she worked. A co-worker told the manager, and Mum was given the job as entertainer. She sang all the Marlene Dietrich songs. The European workers loved her. She made them feel a little homesick for a while.

A tall, dark, handsome fellow was in the dining hall one night and fell in love with her at first sight and adored her magnificent voice.

My dad, Timothy Popov, was from Yugoslavia but lived in Austria. He was in the army when King Peter was a child. He was a butcher in the family business and drove buses around the mountains.

Then, like many others, he answered a call from the Australian government for skilled European migrants. Many of the Europeans went to Thredbo as it resembled the mountain landscapes of Germany and Austria. The vast majority of men were working on the Snowy Mountains Scheme. I assume my dad worked there, but I was too young to ask these important historical questions.

Mum and Dad moved to Newcastle in the late 1950s. They lived in a tent and slowly built one tiny room at a time on land at South Wallsend. They worked hard in the Australian sun, clearing yards, gardening, mowing, landscaping in the Merewether Heights and Lambton Heights areas. They moved to Whitebridge.

Dad went to a trots meeting one Saturday afternoon and saw a lady with twin Aboriginal children. Dad told Mum to go and ask where do you buy these children? Mum was so embarrassed, but, when Dad spoke, you did as he said.

Well, they wrote a letter. A welfare inspector came up from Sydney and met them to do an assessment. All approved, he sent a letter telling them to be at Broadmeadow Railway Station at 10am on Friday, April 22, 1960, and a welfare lady would present them with a five-year-old girl to foster.

It happened so fast. I was removed from my family camp in Coonamble, and in one fell swoop my birth mother had all seven children taken away.

I arrived by train at Broadmeadow, and I was escorted by a welfare worker who told me, "Donna, this is your new mummy and daddy. Go with them and they will give you something to eat."

I went to a lovely home but was very sad without my own siblings. I didn't understand what had happened. I was fostered for three years and then adopted. It was hard trying to work out my identity. But, 60 years on, I know now that I was dearly anticipated and loved.

My parents worked hard. Dad was a greenkeeper at Tighes Hill technical college and Mum was head salesperson at Palings music store in Newcastle.

They bought their own business, a small corner shop in Carrington. After four years they became proprietors of the Caltex service station at Sandgate. When I married they sold the family business and retired.

I met my birth mother, Beatrice Welsh, in 1980. My mums met, sang together and listened with tears to each other's story. Beatrice was the "Voice of the West", the black Connie Francis or Patsy Cline.

My European mum was a loving, kind Christian woman who knew that love conquered all problems. I am so thankful I was sent to this family, and we can see God's hand in all our lives.

I am one of the stolen generation who was taken from her family and brought to the city to start a new life with the government's intention for me to forget all about my Aboriginal roots, but you can never do that.

I want the people of Germany to know what a great treasure my mum is, how dearly she is loved and what an amazing thing she did for me in adopting me.

I launched my autobiography, It Is No Secret, in 2000, and at the book launch my Aboriginal aunty gave my mum a bunch of flowers and said, "We just want to thank you, Elisabeth, for taking such good care of Donna as we couldn't."

My two mums respected and admired each other. I recall in the camp in Coonamble my birth mother would sing each night with her piano accordion, then in my new house my new mum was doing the same.

Looking back, I marvel at how much my birth mother loved me and what courage she had to sign adoption papers in 1963. I marvel at how much my adoptive mum loved me, a child of another race, as if her own.

I was blessed to meet all my siblings, aunts and uncles. My story was so different to theirs. I had a privileged life compared with the homes they were taken to.

I look back knowing I survived government policies, racism, rejection, isolation and poverty, and it was my mum who understood all these issues from first-hand experience and had the wisdom to nurture me.

Mum was passionate about justice and equality. She and Dad were disgusted to find out they could vote as Australian citizens before Aboriginal people could.

Mum saw 100 years, 100 Christmases, 100 summers. She loved Australia, loved the word of God, loved Aboriginal people and loved her three grandsons and four great-grandchildren.

My adoptive dad, Tim, passed in 1976, my birth mother in 1986, my birth father, Mervyn Morris, in 1995, my husband, Ron, in 1999, and now my adoptive mum, Elisabeth, last Wednesday, January 22, 2020.

My mum was the most selfless person I ever knew, and I wanted this city to know who she was. I imagined saying I was an orphan would break my heart, but I know we have a never-ending love.