friendship threads
Entry posted by swilkinson
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Ray and I have been very social lately. We go through periods of having invitations and some of them we accept. It does depend on the time and the place, for instance morning is better than afternoon, lunch out is better than dinner out. The venue is important too as Ray doesn't manage stairs but if there is a lift that will fit him, me and the wheelchair, no problem. This does mean some places are just not accessible to us.
This past couple of weeks we have been out to both regular happenings, like our Apex 40 club dinner and our Lions Club dinner, and to a couple of parties. One was an engagement party for a friend's daughter. So Saturday afternoon we were out at Peats Ridge, where the hot air was blowing off the bush fires in a nearby gully,that started about the time we got there. There was no real danger as the wind was actually blowing the fire in the opposite direction to where we were, it was only afterwards I realised we would have been in real danger if the wind had changed. It was noisy with television crews in helicopters hovering overhead trying to film the fire and the men rushing off to monitor where the smoke was coming from to make sure we were all safe and didn't need to evacuate but we still had a lovely afternoon.
By co-incidence four people I knew, from four different periods of my life, were there as guests so I spent most of the afternoon catching up on their lives. One of Ray's cousins was also there so they caught up too. Most people who know Ray are starting to see the changes in him now, in a strange way a few more seem kinder, maybe it is because they are aging themselves and maybe a little more appreciative of the frailties of the human mind and body. Pity we don't go through that about 21 so we are nicer people for the rest of our lives.
Today we went to a lunch put on at Camp Breakaway by one of the organizations that use it. The lunch was funded by a government grant and was aimed at getting more carers to accept assistance from this organization. It is hard sometimes to get people to swallow their pride and take up offers of assistance. I know it must be harder for some than others. A couple of the care recipients were from good backgrounds, one a retired police inspector, another a lawyer, but they both had dementia and wives that were finding it hard to maintain both caring for them and keeping up with lifestyle changes. I think we get invited to things like this because of my wide range of experiences with welfare situations both from my background of chaplaincy and working for Social Security and my experience as a caregiver to my parents and to Ray. I can appeal to people on several different levels.
Again I found a couple of people at the lunch that I had known from past association. I am finding more and more that a person from one part of my life will suddenly appear in another part of my life. It is not so much that it is "a small world" as we say but sometimes as if we somehow trail friendship threads that from time to time pull us back together again. Or that is my theory anyway...lol. Perhaps sometimes there is an attraction as though people find us again because of some wisdom we have that they now need. Of course some would call that God's guidance.
Like everyone else we have been watching the trauma of the bush fires that have claimed so many lives in Victoria. It is more than 800 miles south of us but I guess it is galvanizing the nation. Many good points have come out of the news coverage and discussions some of which are....to look at how we keep ourselves and our loved ones safe, to think about what emergency plans we have in place, and maybe even to keep closer tabs on the ones we love. So sad to find someone you love by looking through a list of victims of a bush fire instead of finding their name in the phone book and giving them a ring as happened to one estranged father.
The big events of life certainly give us food for thought. I don't want to go into all I have been thinking here but I am aware of a whole new set of thoughts particularly about our mortality and making the right moves while we still have the time and energy. It really is too late when we are in a hospital bed with tubes coming out in all directions to wonder what we could have done better.
In a bush fire money and wealth meant nothing, having an expensive home didn't save people from the fires, intelligence often failed them too. I guess you could put who lived and who died down to making decisions that either lined up or didn't to take them to safety or leave them in peril. Are there things we could have done to prevent this tragedy, or strategies we can put into place to prevent it happening again? It is certainly something to reflect upon, as a nation and as an individual.
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