swilkinson

Nancy, we await your next epistle. Sue,

Pam, as an advocate for others you are saying what so many other voiceless ones are thinking. I know it can be lonely on the journey but the friendships you are bullding are a valuable part of that. So keep on doing what you are doing.

Good for you Jay, it must be good for your wife coming home to a nice roast beef dinner.

Katrina, it is so good you have a job again and he freedom that brings. Good job you are patient as finding chewed up items you dog has attacked would blow my cool. Hope you continue to enjoy weekends with your Dad.

Scott, sounds marvellous, love those light and sound displays. Pam, keep on asking, keep on thinking about what you learn about stroke. We sure do need people to be informed and the medical profession fails miserably there. (((hugs))) Sue.

Read on any widow site and you will see what a widow or widower feels about the holiday season. I guess not a lot different to what a survivor or caregiver feels but a little lonelier. It is hard in holiday season to be alone and a bit sad for that is how older widows and widowers must appear. Separated from their families and significant others a widow on her own is hardly a family and of course Christmas in the secular world is seen as a family celebration . Or is that just the Hallmark view? I am a woman of many years experience and will do what a mature woman does, manage my life on my own. Not the ideal situation but what has to be.That thought is not as scary now as it used to be I think I am getting more used to it being that way. Some times I am sad about it but facing reality has always been what life is about for me. Some people say they admire me for my honesty but what is the point of faking it? To live as honestly as I can is one of my aims in life. As usual the days are busy this time of the year. I went down to my daughter's place for a few days and enjoyed that. I loved being with the grandkids. We had a very busy weekend. The Sallies at Shell Harbour do the Christmas gift wrapping in their largest shopping centre and although Shirley was officially having a day off on Saturday we called in while she was shopping and finding the girls overwhelmed we all pitched in to get rid of the backlog. In a way a church or in her case Corps, is like a family, and so when one member is working too hard everyone else should willingly pitch in to help. Sunday was a prayer meeting, followed by a church service, a "Thank You" lunch and then a concert. It was a marathon day. Even I cried at their "Thank You" lunch as many people stood up and said how wonderful the Spooner family had been in their time there. It is hard to hear that just before you leave a place. I will love having them closer to me from the second week in January, but will miss my trips to the lovely South Coast. I have made some unlikely friends in the six years they have been there and we all knew for me that would be the parting of the ways. I so appreciated the two carloads of people who turned up at Ray's funeral to support their "Captain" and her mother and family. There is something special about that kind of caring. I wish I could put that feeling more eloquently into words. Monday was church cleaning and shopping day. In a small Corps the people have to pitch in and help as money for a cleaner is not one of the priorities. I think it is good to see the preacher on Sunday cleaning the church on Monday,makes them seem more human and approachable. Tuesday we were back at the church, welfare interviews for Shirley and I read my book. The best part was going off to lunch together, Shirley and I rarely have time alone. Nothing important to talk about really but we enjoyed it. Then off to do the Christmas wrapping again. I had a wander around some of the large shopping centre and she packed up early as we had the presentation at the High school to go to. My grandson is bright and about third in his year but his award was for food technology as he is a mighty cook. He did the recipes for the last weeks of school term. Got to love a kid like that. He is a musician, plays the cornet in the Corps band and the trumpet in the school band. My grand daughter is pretty bright but always gets the citizenship award rather than an academic achievement award. Love them both heaps. I know it will be harder for them next year in a new house, new neighbourhood, new schools but I hope they find it easy to settle in. Moving is as hard on kids as it is on their parents. I know as we moved a lot when I was a child. I think as I age there is a sense of seasons running together, it is no sooner Easter than it seems we are preparing for Christmas. In the church that is more obvious than in the community I think. In the community Christmas is a day, in the church it is a season. In Australia we sing of snow and reindeer and log fires and it is ridiculous all the while we are experiencing heat and sun and not a reindeer in sight. So in a way we find it harder to celebrate what is a winter festival in the northern hemisphere in the heat of a southern hemisphere summer. And as I am planning to go back out west that will make it even more difficult to imagine a snowy scene as it will be hot winds, red soil, semi-arid landscapes and no time of the year to cook a turkey. But we will enjoy the season anyway. I think for me being together even with a small part of my family will be good and Shirley and Craig have booked me for next year. That is a long way off though. For now i will go on making plans for this year's Christmas.

Don't you hate those unexpected visitors? With or without the red nose. Have you been back to your doctor to make sure none of your medications are responsible for your energy loss? There does seem to be a lot of it going on in the Stroke Recovery group I still belong to so it does make me wonder.

100 sausage rolls! Mitch you are a legend!

Wish I knew what your legal system is like so I could suggest where you wold go to get some help. It seems as if the laws on the body corporate have no teeth if some people can get away with not paying their share to keep the property in repair. Hope you can find a way to get a new roof soon.

Yes, pick the battles you can win for a while. Make sure you get out of your room as much as you can, see if there is a TV in one of the public areas showing the shows you wold normally watch. Enjoy any company you can find where the person gives you a boost when you do, smile and enjoy. Sue.

Jay it is hard to adapt when you have lost so much of your independence. Hope the sun shines on you today.

Hey Fred, older does make a difference but you are still Number ONE in my book.

Wow, they are a real support group for you Jay, your bus buddies. Yes, lots of good people around, you just have to want to find them. Good news all round.

Lenny wonderful news indeed. I am so glad you updated us as good news is always welcome. Good luck with your plans for Christmas. Have a great time with your family.

Sounds like it may be hard work but if it is what you both want then you will do it somehow. I hope you can get all you want put in place so you know what you can do and what the aides will have to do. Being organised is what it takes to make it happen. Take time out to take care of yourself too. Sue.

WOW!!! Can't think of a suitable reply Colleen, what a nightmare you have been through. I can only hope it gets better for you and Mike. Slow and steady progress is the best. Keep helping him in his recovery and time care of yourself too if that is possible. (((HUGS))) Sue.

Haven't started shopping Fred, I will do a little at a time until it is finished. Just the thought makes me tired...lol.

Sorry that so far there has been no progress on this issue for you Pam. I know it must be wearying for you and oh so frustrating. Hopefully in time a better treatment will be found.

Thanks for the photos Mitch, I enjoy your commentary on life. I know how you feel in a way as I watched Ray realise he could walk less, do less, enjoy less. Just remember it is move it or lose it - so MOVE IT MATE.

Sometimes when I see something I still think: "I must tell Ray about that". I watch a TV program we once would have watched together and I turn to him to say something and of course he is not there. I suppose it is partly because I haven't moved, I still live in the house Ray extended three times. We owned this house together for a long time, it is the house we called home with two out of three of our children (Trevor was born in Yass, we moved there in 1974). We bought it or at least paid the desposit on it about six months after we were married. We were away from the house for ten and a half years so we came back at the end of 1984, this time with three kids. I have lived here ever since. I haven't done much to the house since Ray went off to the Nursing home in 2011. I do need to do quite a lot to get it all ship shape again but it all seems like a lot of effort. When my Shirley and her family move closer and I can get her to come and have a look at the house I will make a list of all that needs to be done and decide what to do first. A lot of the jobs will need a tradesman so then it is a matter of lining it all up and finding the money to pay for it. Quite a lot of it has to be done if I am to ever move and I will need to do that, find a smaller house on one level before I get too old to move. I can see a future where I do get older, looking around at the widows in the church I can almost trace the path I will be following. Sometimes that is really scary. One thing about doing the visiting in the nursing homes is it gives you a real touch of reality. Over the three years I have been back to doing this I have seen some of the people I am fond of fading fast. It is not Dementia or Alzheimers, just the ageing process which happens to us all, some faster than others of course. If you come from a family who live into their nineties then seventy is not old but I am less than two years off that "O" Birthday now. On the brighter side of life I also work with children in our Messy Church team and of course have grandchildren of my own and neighbourhood children so I do see children around me growing and improving and learning. Working in Messy Church is fun as I am a kid at heart and always have to do the craft projects and mix in with those having the most fun. We have kids with learning problems too and that take some patience to work with them so that they have craft works to take home like the other kids. But among other things working with Ray as a disabled person did give me a lot of patience so I laugh rather than get irritated and so they laugh too and we are all happy with the end result. I am going down to my daughter's to see my 16 year old grandson get an award next week. This will be my last trip down to see the folk at her Salvation Army Corps down there as Shirley and family finish there a week before they are moving. It will be like saying goodbye to old friends as she has been there six years and I have made a lot of visits in that time. Some of them came to Ray's funeral, over four hours drive for them and I was so blessed by their kindness in doing so. There are some folk who have taken "Captain's mother" to their hearts and I will miss seeing them. And so I look to the New Year to bring some more changes into my life. I know that is happening in the church too as the new minister wants to take on new projects. I did the sermon in church on Sunday, wasn't my day but the assistant has some health issues and I volunteered to help out. I always find it a bit scary as you are putting ideas before people for them to accept, reject or deny. I told a Broken Hill story and some folk got the connection and smiled so that part was a success. Every thing in our life connects in some ways both to the past and to the future. Of course I can try to forget Ray but really it is impossible to do so, both the good times and the bad times will be recalled from time to time, memories I would rather not remember and those I find hard to recall alike. There are lessons to be learned all through life. I am getting to the age when some things I would rather forget. I am able now to recall the times when Ray and I were happy, it has taken me three years to get there but at last I can connect the happy smiling Ray in photos from the 60s, 70s and 80s with the happier stories and the later ones of him looking so drawn and ill are not the memories I want to carry. I am also now associating with people who have never met Ray, or if they did meet him it was in the last few years of his life. They might know me from four or five years ago but really do not remember Ray at all. In a way that is an advantage as they know me as I am now, free to do so much more without the many tasks a caregiver has do and never enough time to do it all in. But in other ways it is strange as I start to tell a Ray story and they just look blank as they cannot connect it to the Ray as I knew him years ago. I know others will forget him with time but I will never forget him all the time my brain is clear and functioning. And so I madly rush towards Christmas, so many things to do, people to see, others to reconnect with. Someone told me today she had sent out all her Christmas cards. I do not even know who I will send them to. I have folk on email and Facebook and I will send them greetings electronically. I have some people I can write a few lines in a card and that will do, while others will need a much longer update. It all seems like a bit of an effort but I know I will get there in the end. And of course some people will have forgotten us all together because when Ray died for them "Sue and Ray" died. They may have forgotten me but hopefully I will remember them and the good times we shared.

Julie, I hope you had a great time with your daughter. I suppose it is a nuisance Larry has to have more tests but if it all has a positive result so be it. And his putting on the weight is good too.

Fantastic Scott, it is always great for staff to have someone come back and say "thank you" so it was a gift to them too.

Thanks Jay for the hope you give to all of us.

Mitch glad you are okay. Family woes can take up our time for sure and rightly so, it is good we are there to support them. And gardening in Spring keeps you pretty busy too. I hope things settle down for you and Jules now and you have some time to just enjoy the garden rather than always working on it.

George I am lactose intolerant and allergic to palm oil so have been on a modified diet for 20+ years. Works for me and okay I miss ice cream and cheese but life goes on diet or no diet but much better with the diet. Your description off the Nashville experience for your son is a good reminder that changes in our lives are possible and that there is always a dream to pursue, a bucket list to tick the items off. So happy trails. Way to go!