swilkinson

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  1. swilkinson

    floating

    By swilkinson,

    I went to see my minister today to discuss a new position as Mutual Care co-ordinator, unpaid of course. I was hoping he would have some kind of job description but he said I will mostly be "floating through the various groups in the Parish". For a moment I had a vision of the blue whale in "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" which suddenly appears floating through space uttering a lonely cow-like cry. It was very hard to keep a straight face. It is inconvenient sometimes to have a bizarre sense of humour. I got it from my Mum who was a genius at crosswords and word games and really enjoyed puns. Often when I had been talking to her as a teenager I would suddenly realise afterwards that what she said was not as serious as I had thought but was often said tongue in cheek.
     
    I think my minister is right though that as one who will be doing pastoral care in an almost minimal way passing through the groups is a good way to pick up information and find out where support is needed. It is what we do on Strokenet when we read the posts, read the blogs and go to chat and speak to people, we are gathering the information we need to support someone in an intelligent way. The support they need might not be much more than a comment or a kind word but just that can put their minds at rest, I know it works that way for me.
     
    Winter is quiet here. People are more inside, the doors shut and the houses kept warm. I have been out somewhere most days as if I stay home I can get cabin fever very quickly. It is so different when there is only one person in the house. Sometimes I sing just to hear my voice. Sometimes I sing because I am happy but a lot of the time I sing because I am lonely. I am good at finding excuses not to do housework and why I need to knit, sew or crochet instead, I think I have that in common with a lot of craftswomen who would rather throw a pot or piece together a quilt than do housework...lol.
     
    I did have the opportunity to do some gardening on Tuesday which was good. I was going to pot up the bromeliads but the soil is so clumpy in the pots with all the rain we have had. Thank goodness the promised five day rain event starting today did not appear so I was able to go for a walk, just around a couple of streets but a walk anyway. I need to do that to keep up some kind of fitness. I worked so hard when I cared for Ray that walking was not a part of the plan, now I am trying to build a new plan. Not easy as I do so want to cling to what I always did, have what I always had, be who I always was, but that time is gone now. .
     
    For a while it seemed disloyal to make alterations, in the house, in what I did and in what I thought about. It is hard to explain if you haven't been bereaved but somehow after a lifetime of being a married woman, and a wife even if I am no longer raising children I still seem to go on functioning in a certain way. Widowhood throws all of that into the mix and for a while what you go on doing whatever it was you did. But of course in the end that has to change. For one thing age alters what you can do. And so you slowly rebuild your life and like rehabilitation it is almost,day by day and inch by inch. Maybe we just can't make the changes fast, maybe it has to be slowly so we can assimilate it better.
     
    I went to an odd funeral yesterday. It featured all the things usually done at funerals including a long eulogy but the bereaved daughter seemed to be everywhere bossing people around, checking on everyone, changing things at the last minute. I thought the minister ( from the next parish) responded very calmly to the changes. Not a tear was shed for this wonderful old lady, everyone behaved very calmly. I was astounded. I wonder if they all went home and broke down there? Isn't it odd how "in control" some people have to be? Not me, I would have been howling. But we are all different.
     
    And so, life changes again. I will be a person with a pastoral care role in the church again. I hope I still get to play with the Sunday school kids occasionally and get to walk slowly with the oldies. I hope no-one tries to label me or shove me into a pigeon hole or put some great expectations upon me. I will never be more or less than who I am now. I hope that will be enough.
     
    If you hear that cow-like cry, somewhere overhead, do look up and see if you can spot that blue whale floating high above you. Give it a smile and a wave. It may be me or someone in a similar role in a church close to you.
  2. swilkinson
    I have just been chatting to a friend on a different site. We have been cyber friends since 2006. She and I both had husbands diagnosed with Dementia about the same time so joined a Dementia site which is no longer operating. Her husband is still alive, in his third year in a nursing home and of course my good man has gone. We are both bad sleepers so sometimes chat in the middle of the night, she is in Western Australia so two hours behind me time wise.
     
    I know it is silly to ask how will I know when it is time to make changes, it is like asking how long is a piece of string. It is individual and makes no sense to pre-empt it or make decisions until your heart is right with the change itself. My friend has moved out of her rented house and into a granny flat in her daughter's back yard. She would like to go out on her own again but finances do not allow for that while she is also supporting her husband. She gets holidays by pet sitting, she likes houses near a beach as she lives inland.
     
    I seem to be still in transition. It would help if the cabin was completed, if I had all the under house cleaned out and knew if it would be possible to live in a two bedroom villa or if I would feel claustrophobic. I visited a friend in one last week and it did seem very small. I have high ceilings here so never feel closed in. I need a lot of cupboard space too. I would still like to keep some of my momentos from the past and of course a lot of photo albums and other bits and pieces I brought from my parents' place. That means a bigger unit than my friend has but I don't want it to be hard to upkeep.
     
    Just the process of selling would be a burden to me. I know some people are ruthless and out it all goes but I have already had regrets about a lot of what I gave away or threw out from under the house. I've needed a couple of the tools I gave to the men from the Men's Shed and no longer have that rich supply of nuts and bolts and saws and hammers and... all that other interesting junk. What would I be like if I downsized the kitchen and then found I did need a garlic crusher or a meat cleaver or any of the rest of the clutter I have in the drawers and cupboards. I know I could replace them but very rarely with the same quality tools.
     
    I didn't blog on my birthday as it was mainly a non-event. I had some phone calls, some nice emails and some birthday wishes on Facebook. I had phone calls the day after too as people looked at the calendar and said: "oops, missed Sue's birthday again." I do that too. The calendar on Facebook is a good reminder as the date leaps up at me, but still forget to wish some people a happy birthday. It is partly the times we live in where it seems acceptable to forget because "we are all busy people". I did have dinner out with my DIL Pam and her three, at a place that has a very nice buffet so that was a good close to the day. And of course the girls in chat helped me celebrate too.
     
    This is the first year without having Trev and Edie and family close by and that was my sea anchor, so now I feel as if I am drifting a bit. I know Shirley would have made a fuss had she been here but she is so busy where she is and a quick phone call has to be enough. Not satisfactory really and that loneliness still hangs over the special days when it should be "family time". Yesterday was Alice's second birthday so I rang three times, in the morning she talked her baby talk to me, at lunchtime she was busy running around and was too wound up to talk and at night she said "sank oo" for her present, and she did like the rag doll I sent so that was fine. I can manage one long distant relationship, not sure I can manage three.
     
    Should I give up the visits back to the organisations I belonged to? Another question I ask myself. I don't feel as attached to them as I used to though I still have friends I would like to continue to support. It is a dilemma, I don't know how to resolve it at the moment, the WAGS stroke recovery group is less important now but Strokenet is still very important and I am happy to be known as a volunteer. I don't go to one of the Dementia groups now and don't go to the meetings at the nursing home either. But I do keep in touch with individuals from the groups. So I am gradually weaning myself away from the groups. Not easy as they were an essential part of who I was a caregiver to Mum and to Ray. But although that is gone forever I still have a caregiver's heart.
     
    Still contemplating some changes in my role at Church, I've almost decided I don't want a role with a title. I have always been a behind-the-scenes person. Partly because that has made it easier to get alongside of people. And partly because I can swim against the tide and help hurting people without everyone knowing what I am doing. Thus doesn't quite fit into our present "teams" so I might just have to say "no" to the job that our minister wants me to do. Hate to do that but hopefully we will discuss it and see if he has a problem with that.
     
    Changes, changes, all around I see. i'd sing that chorus but that is all the words I can remember. Big storms here last night, it was rainy and cold the last couple of nights. Warm May has gone and cold old June is with us. No snow on the Snowy Mountains which is a disaster for the tourist operators here and left a lot of people with a long weekend and nowhere to go. If it fines up they can go to the beach maybe...lol.
  3. swilkinson

    filling in time

    By swilkinson,

    Sometimes I have too much time to think. Then I go out somewhere to fill in time, the stores, the seaside, a park where I can sit in the sun. It is not ideal but I am finding at my age that I can't just ring a friend and pop over any more. I just rang one who was supposed to go to an craft evening with me tonight and she said: "We have visitors, I'll call you back later." and I could hear her husband's voice in the background and knew that it was a "couples afternoon", something I no longer have. I know I should not be envious but just for an instant I am. I am learning that this is okay as long as I can shrug it off and not hold onto the sentiment for too long.
     
    I am hoping the worst of the grief is over now. I still hit something that makes me cry sometimes. When someone you love dies there seems to be a lot of loose ends, a lot of unfinished business and somehow that all has a negative impact. There are memories that send you over the edge, that photo of a place you once loved and will never go again because it was for you and him, not just for you, the phone call that you initiate that ends suddenly, when the "couple friend" hears her husband and says she has to go and of course you have no-one so that is a sad echo. Okay, most of the time I am fine on my own and sometimes I am not.
     
    Last official day of autumn (fall) for us today. We have just had a warm May after a fairly cool April. Crazy weather. I am doing the last of the gardening, potting up so that in Spring there is room for growth. That is what I am looking for myself now a settled period and hopefully a burst of growth in Spring. Winter because we can be shut inside because of bad weather has extra thinking time. I will try to be positive instead of negative in what I think. I will try to get some semblance of routine going without it becoming too inflexible. I need time to do some spur-of-the-moment stuff as well as before Ray's passing I could not do that.
     
    I still say "us" and "we", sometimes I correct myself and say "sorry that should be I" and sometimes I don't. It is not important, I just still think in terms of us and we, the habit of 44 years dies hard. I do know I am "me" but really still do not know who that person is. I told an old friend today that I feel as if I am just wandering through my life. Sure I have things to do but that is just some of the time, the rest of the time still seems empty. I can fill some of it with the usual, craft, reading, watching television, coming onto the computer but at the end of the day I would like to know I have done something worthwhile with my time, not just filled in the hours.
     
    At the back of my mind I still feel as if both Mum and Ray should have part of my time. I think because their deaths came close together it impacted more on my life than if they had died two years apart so I could have got over one death before encountering another. I now understand why some people who are widowed or divorced quickly look around for another partner, another family to fill the gaping hole that has suddenly appeared in the middle of their life.It is not a good idea, we need to be whole people before we can join ourselves to another, but I do understand that for some people being alone is not what they want to be so they avoid it by introducing new people into their lives, to fill up the gap,
     
    I filled the gap last year by planning the trip to England. That filled six weeks of the boring time of winter. It was a grand plan but not something I could afford to do every year. That is another thing widows do here, go travelling. Some just between family members, others go jaunting across Europe, off to Canada and the USA,or to other to places you've never heard of, remote tropical islands and tours into the depths of Russia or China. All to fill in the gap that a bereavement leaves and somehow make life feel okay for them again. They brightly say: "I am okay, I am off to Europe next week." and that fills in an awkward moment for them.
     
    I wish I could find something really fulfilling to do. I know there is a lot of call for volunteers in nursing homes, child care, churches and charities, I will probably volunteer more next year. I know there are groups I could join or run come to that. I know a couple of friends keep asking me when am I going to start using some of my talents again? That throws me a bit because as a married woman I always had the excuse if I wanted it: "Family times takes up most of my spare time so I have limited time available to volunteer" and let's face it I no longer have that excuse. What I do have is time on my hands that I have not yet found a use for. I am sure that will come as time passes. In widowhood it is still early days yet.
  4. swilkinson
    Something really strange happened. For the last three days I have not been able to make national calls or information calls on 1300 numbers. I notified my provider on Tuesday but the person who works on that was away. She called me back today to say someone tried to hijack my line! She said she would be able to have it all back the way it was by tomorrow and I would not be charged for the last three days calls, so I am guessing that there were some. I have never heard of this before so was pleased my provider was on the ball and sorted it all out. I was lucky it didn't affect my internet or I really would have been cross.
     
    I have been doing more paperwork, this time for a police clearance for working with children. Sadly due to so many child abuse cases going through the courts we all have to go through this now. Finished my clearance today and I will have the certification back within three working days. Another hurdle overcome. This time it will also include working with the elderly so I will go to the places where I do home communions and show it and that will make me current for three years. So complicated to do any of this now. I did enjoy the visit to the police station though as the desk sergeant had been posted close to Broken Hill where my younger son and family are so we had a good talk and a laugh about some of his stories of his time there.
     
    I didn't get to chat on Tuesday night as I got a phone call from the school my youngest grandson goes to to ask me to pick him up as he had been sick in his classroom. I thought my daughter-in-law would only be doing her shopping or something locally but drove the 40 minutes over there and arrived to find him a bit brighter. Took him back to his house where no-one was home and all the doors locked. Decided to wait a while as he was snuggled under a rug and feeling okay. When I decided it was time to take him home we passed his Mum at the end of the street so were able to go back and tell her what had happened. She had dropped and broken her mobile phone so that is why she didn't answer!
     
    I was supposed to go to a funeral tomorrow but can't get public transport there and back. It was a cousin of Ray's who he was very close to in our younger days. I am sorry I can't get there as it would be good to catch up with that part of his family. I know it is not possible to do everything but now I am "free" I think I should in some ways be able to make amends for all the funerals and family occasions we had to miss because of Ray's health. But three days notice is not really enough to get to an out of the way town five hours drive away and back home again for the commitments I have on the weekend.
     
    Just about all of those from our Club who went to Adelaide are back again with their own tales to tell. As we age we enjoy the reminiscing and recalling of old memories so reunions and association meetings allow that to happen. I guess for me memories of Ray and I together at such meetings both cloud and brighten my memories of him, cloud as others do not have the same memories but brighten as they share what they remember of him. One man at the convention said: "Remember when I tipped Ray out of the wheelchair at Moree?" and I did and the way a whole lot of men hurried over and had him right way up in no time. Good memories, ones that make me laugh, are so sweet to me now. I need to remember the good times, not the bad times and others who shared them can help me to do that.
     
    Winter is approaching but I feel I am not as likely to feel isolated this year. I am determined to make an effort to get out and about. Health permitting of course as already colds and flu are around in the general community. All in all I am thankful for what I have, food on the table, a roof over my head and the support of wonderful people near and far.
  5. swilkinson
    I have just been away for just over two weeks with rather a complicated itinerary but all worked out well. It has all been a while in the planning phase and I mostly got things right but I was not to know that it would rain for the first ten days of the holiday, the temperature would drop and it would be suddenly wintery. Hot and dry Broken Hill was unseasonably cold and wet but I survived.
     
    First I visited my son Trevor and family, it was lovely to be with them again. I think the move has been hard for them as Trev does not have a job yet so he is looking after Alice and Edie's Mum is only looking after the children when they are both busy. We managed to see a lot of the sights, not many in a small city surrounded by semi-desert country but interesting in the nothing-like-here way. It was greener than I had expected as they have had just about their annual rainfall already and more predicted. The mining history of the town is interesting and we went to a good museum as well as out to the Living Sculpture Park which I really enjoyed with its carved stones and wild hinterland backdrop.
     
    I was to fly to Adelaide for the convention but Trev finished up driving me the six hour journey. I shared accommodation with another widow whose husband died of cancer nearly three years ago and another married couple.There were only a few widows and single people there, it was mostly couples, but there was no melt-down, just a sigh of regret from time to time when I saw couples dancing. Luckily with 18 others from our Club there we had many cheerful moments and some of wonderful manic laughter. Laughter certainly is the best medicine. I am glad it is acceptable to dance alone with the new modern dances so we danced alone and smiled and laughed. Above all we were in company and having a good time.
     
    We did a bus trip around the Barrossa Valley, one of the great Australian wine areas, yes I did take a sip or two, not a lot as I can tolerate whites but not reds but there are a lot of lovely wines out there and our companions more than made up for me. We also did a River Cruise and visited some interesting places. Sometimes I wished Ray was with me as we had been to some of the places before and he and I would have renewed our memories together but that is easier to go through now than it used to be. I did have some people express their condolences as they hadn't seen me since 2009 but had known Ray and liked him.The Club who helped me when he had the strokes at their convention in 1999 almost reduced me to tears with the nice things they said about him. It is good he is remembered with affection.
     
    After the convention I flew back to Sydney and went down to my daughter's place for Mothers Day. It was a quieter trip on the Saturday train than it usually is when I go mid-week. I had a nice time there, visiting with the grandchildren, enjoying the things they like to do, it was lovely to have someone else do the cooking. They took me out to lunch yesterday (Monday) as they are busy all day Sunday and we had an enjoyable lunch at a restaurant overlooking the ocean. I really love to do that. There are certainly a lot of wonderful places to see and experience and I mean to add some more to my bucket list.
     
    I got home this afternoon and was sooo glad to be in the peace and quiet of my own place. And it goes without saying how good it will be tonight to sleep in my own bed once more.
  6. swilkinson
    Cannot believe what I just did! I wrote a couple of paragraphs of this blog and then shut it down without saving it. After six hundred or so blogs you'd think I'd know better eh? Put it down to not sleeping last night. I think all the coming and going for the past week as I went to various church services as well as fitting in all the usual round of chores has tired me out and when I am too tired I don't sleep.
     
    I find all the "family festivals" harder now my family is scattered. The last year of Ray's life they all made a real effort to be with us on special days and visited as often as they could. Shirley and Craig would do a church service and spend close to four hours getting here so we could all be together, Steven came if he could with the kids and Trevor of course lived locally so he and Edie did the same. They all visited less last year and this year Shirley and family have not been up at all although I have visited them.
     
    I have an allergy to palm oil which is used in the making of commercial brands of hot cross buns so can't eat them now and would you believe it is now used in the manufacture of Easter eggs so those were out too for me this year. Hard to keep saying "no thank you dear, I can't eat them now" to the little ones handing out Easter eggs in the church service. I just ate my normal food at mealtimes and filled my days with gardening, reading on the verandah and going to church as I do on most weekends.
     
    So that is Easter over, done and dusted. We do have Easter Monday as a public holiday here in Australia but it is a day when people just get over the fact that they've had three days off and that can't be all bad. For us churchies we are getting over a week of far too much church - much as we enjoy it and think we should do it. I did go out for lunch after church as usual on Sunday but only three of us this week, all "singles" as everyone else was busy with family stuff. Unfortunately we are burying one of our group today, she reached 99 and seven months and then her heart gave out and after a few weeks in hospital she died last week. We'll all miss Beryl, the sailor's bride.
     
    As a person on my own I had a lot of apprehension about how I would cope this year with Easter. I really didn't have too bad a weekend, kept myself busy, tried hard not to think of Easters past, ignored the Saturday night parties my younger neighbours had. I know now through a site called Widowed Village that I belong to that a lot of people struggle with the special holidays and know I am just one of many. So I know to fill my days with things like gardening and crocheting, watch a movie if I want to and generally acting like the solitary lady I am becoming now. And I survived. What more can you ask? Shirley did ring me about 7pm Sunday night to see how I was going. There were no Easter cards this year but some Easter greetings on Facebook and I got a couple of greeting emails. But no-one actually said Happy Easter apart from the folk at church.
     
    ​​I have the convention coming up so had some phone calls on what we were going to do for a skit. After much discussion it came down to miming Abba songs, so we were set up with red wigs and had to buy white outfits and then, what a blow, no skits this year! A pity as our Club has been very successful over the years with our comedy acts. I will never forget the Pheasant Pluckers' song. never. I don't think I have ever been as nervous as I was that night.
     
    I am looking forward to the convention and a four day tour afterwards of the Adelaide Hills (wine country) and just the company and the fact I don't have to prepare meals. It will all be such fun. Of course at the AGM there will be a roll call so we will be reminded of those we have lost and I guess as this is the first convention I have attended since Ray died there will be people who want to offer their condolences. That bit is always hard to get through even now. And the realisation that I am a single now, not a member of a couple and a lot of these people are Ray's buddies and just incidentally friends of mine too. Life is always bittersweet now.
     
    And I also have the visit to Trevor and family out at Broken Hill to look forward to. So life is better than expected and I know I am coping now and growing stronger. That doesn't mean I don't have my bad, sad, mad days, we all do. But as long as we are doing our best we are okay and will go forward to whatever else life holds for us.
  7. swilkinson
    Well, it was good to have Trevor call back in and pack his car with things to take back to Broken Hill. He was disappointed that some of what he had planned to take back had been taken by the men from the local Men's Shed that I had allowed to take tools. Unfortunately that included some of his! But when your children say no, they do not want what is in the garage Mum then I think that is what the answer is! Silly me. We were both sad that had happened but that's life. And one of the problems with decluttering when not everything about the place belongs to you.
     
    We have had a lot of miserable rainy days this past week but I got the laundry done and the beds ready for the next lot of visitors. I got wet twice yesterday going to church. I went three times so no wonder really as it rained most of the day. With what Christians call Holy Week starting on Sunday it is a busy week church-wise. I will be there most days this week for some service or other and do have to do my home communions too. There are hospital visits to do too if I can find the time. Some of our older, beloved members will not see winter out I fear.
     
    Messy Church yesterday was the usual chaos. I enjoyed sitting next to kids making Easter Baskets or a pot of flowers made of crepe paper and fastened to sticks, arranged in a cup of sand, Yes, the joys of children's handicrafts. It is good to see the boys sitting with a tongue just poking out concentrating on something to give Mum with her Easter egg. Kids do still love making something personal despite the fact that this is the techno age.
     
    I am trying to finish a crocheted rug to take to Broken Hill with me for Lucas. Yes, it is time to update rugs I gave the grandchildren five years ago. Everyone has grown and now their feet stick out the bottom of the rugs and they want Granma to make bigger, longer, more stretchy rugs. I think we are going to need them this winter as it is looking like it could be a cold one. So I'm starting with Lucas's and Naomi's is next.
     
    I am 18 months a widow now and really starting to feel the loneliness at night. I think it is possibly because we have just gone off daylight saving and so the days are shorter and the nights longer. But I also find that by 6pm the world has quietened down and I suddenly feel the need for companionship. Of course I have friends to reach out to via the phone or the computer but that is somehow not comforting. Like another widow said to me recently: "If only someone would ask me 'do you want a cup of tea dear' like Eric did." Yes I can really relate to that although in my case it was me doing the asking. But at least it was companionship, I sometimes failed to realise that at the time.
     
    I have not been one for going out at night since probably 2005 when Ray had his fourth stroke but do remember now how nice it was to go out with friends or maybe to eat out somewhere special. There was that freedom after all the children finally left home and we were alone, Darby and Joan. It is good to think back to those days and remember going off in the car sometimes to dinners or a friend's house. Of course Ray when he was still working was also out and about and we seemed to have so many friends. That all disappeared with the strokes and our slow withdrawal from society.
     
    I know for a fact those days are not coming back now I am a single. I am a widow, an older, single lady, the proverbial "fifth wheel". If I do join a social group that has evening events that might help but I hate the thought of driving somewhere alone on foggy winter nights. Maybe I will just get a stack of books and read my way through winter. And of course there are those bags of wool too.
     
    As usual life takes a good deal of sorting out.
     

  8. swilkinson
    I always think "things are going to be better when..." Things will be better when I get over Ray;s death, things will be better when I have the cabin roof fixed, things will be better when I get used to living alone. I know, I know, if it has to be it is all up to me. But I do not see it that way sometimes so things will be better when I get someone to help me, things will get better when I find someone to do things with, things will be better when .....
     
    It isn't a real big deal but today I got a letter from the lawyer saying my sister is disputing Mum's small investment payout. I also got the cheque for half myself today. It was a tiny amount they invested about 25 years ago at a tiny interest and it has doubled in value. I found that out after waiting about 75 minutes on the phone and speaking to five different people! So I am not disputing it and she can of she wishes to. I am so over every move I make being questioned. My sister never wanted to help with Mum's care or anything else, she wouldn't even be co-executor of Mum's estate. She didn't speak to Mum for about 25 years and now she wants a "please explain"...for sweet Pete's sake!
     
    0n a bright note I have had an unexpected visit from Trev who came back to Sydney with Edie as she had damaged her ankle in a fall and needed help carrying her luggage etc. He came down by car leaving Alice and Lucas with Nanny. Edie is on a two week course learning Crime Scene Photography and Finger-printing so Trevor decided to come up and do some of my odd jobs for me this week. It has been great and we have done some small things I would never have managed on my own. We also had dinner with the three local grandkids last night and their Mum so a bit of family stuff which was good for all of us.
     
    It all helps me to feel supported and that gets rid of the thought that "someone should do something for me occasionally". Like all of you I felt unsupported, or under supported through Ray's many years of invalidity and just hate that feeling. As I age it is hard not to turn into a Grumpy Old Woman or Whingeing Widow Woman but it becomes harder to maintain a happy smiling presence when a lot of the time I do not feel like smiling. Laughing out loud yes, smiling no. There is so much irony in life that there is plenty to laugh at.
     
    The cold weather is coming, the birds are starting to form flocks I noticed last night. I am planning for winter, daylight saving finishes next weekend and then the longer nights will come so quickly. I have the break planned at the end of April and am looking forward to that but there is still the thought of that long grey period ahead to give me an uneasy feeling. Widowhood sucks some times. And I don't know how to change that, except my usual way, one day at a time.
     
    There is so much else for other people to worry about that I feel like my small troubles don't warrant a second thought, murders, massacres, millions dying of starvation or as a result of the many small wars always going in in our world. There was another shooting at Fort Hood which today caught world wide attention and they are still out searching for that plane that went down somewhere between here and India with so many lives lost. So that lost and lonely feeling that I have from time to time does not count for much does it? Of course it does to me. We each bear our own pain.
     
    On a brighter note I have to dress in white tee shirt, white slacks and a long red wig and sing (or lip-sync) Abba songs at our Apex40 convention in May. Picturing that should give you nightmares for a week.
  9. swilkinson

    coming home alone

    By swilkinson,

    I've just been down to my daughter's for a few days. Being away from home helps me put my life into perspective, sharing someone else's life for a few days also shows me what an effort everyone has to put into life to just stay stable. I know my daughter works really hard in her ministry, in her home and in her community. I know fitting me and her widowed mother-in-law into that picture is not easy, but she does it with much love. I know what it is like fitting visitors into a busy week from the time when Ray and I both worked and had family commitments.
     
    What I do when I am there is inconsequential, we usually have a lunch out somewhere on the Saturday and go to church meetings most of Sunday, I join in with whatever they want me to and sit and read or knit when they are busy. There is always another scarf or rug I can work on. And there are the two grandchildren to entertain me. It is good to visit as often as I can without being a burden to them, that way I can keep current with the family news.
     
    As usual I found it hard to come back to the empty house. It is hard to sit down to a solitary meal. It is hard to turn the lights out with no one to say goodnight to, or "see you in the morning". It is harder still to have no-one to share the journey with. The journey home on the train was slow as there was torrential rain and gale force winds on Monday so on Tuesday morning the trains went very slow as the tracks had not yet been inspected. I saw trucks delivering piles of heavy gravel and rocks in places alongside the tracks so I guess in some places there were small washaways.
     
    i guess a lot of people must think that as a widow I am "lucky", now able to do my own thing etc. But I am lonely and often wonder what my purpose in life is right now. Maybe there isn't a describable purpose and like when I was a caregiver the best thing to do is just get on with the tasks I can see need doing. I have been offered some more volunteer work but as yet I am reluctant to make too many changes, life still seems a bit unsettled so I want to feel stable ground before I step out of my comfort zone.
     
    I thought about the clean-up I still have to do here. I will take it more slowly now. It has surprised me how emotional it has been to clean out Ray's tools. As a carpenter tools were a part of Ray, they were extensions of his personality. If you have seen a carpenter at work with an old fashioned plane or wood-working tools you will know what I mean, that look of concentration is very close to love. He'd get such satisfaction out of making a few pieces of wood and some ply into a set of drawers or a bookcase. He made them to give away or pass on to someone who had nothing. A cousin of his with seven kids to feed was often the recipient, all her boys had bookcases made by "Uncle Ray".
     
    Now there is just me I need to live a simpler life. I need to be able to leave the house when I want to to look after the needs of the older ladies I seem to be gathering. I need to be busy, and yet I also need quiet time to balance that out. I've always loved to be on my own, reading, making something, just ruminating sometimes, with a cup of tea on my verandah. Where I once could only spend ten minutes there I now spend an hour. I used to think I was wasting time, now I think of it as a kind of meditation on life. Only the good Lord knows the purpose of my life now, I don't need to worry about it. It just goes on from day to day.
     
    I know some people don't see a purpose in prayer but I do, always have. For me prayer settles the argument of what to give, how to help. I can do physical tasks locally but when the need is far away the answer seems to be that I give my prayers as a sign of loving concern for another. It doesn't have to be someone important or even someone I know. I trained my kids to pray for ambulance drivers and the people the ambulances contained as we lived near a bridge where we were often woken up by ambulances screaming past. The kids knew that someone was hurt, suffering, in pain inside and that meant they needed our prayers. And on nights when the winds blew and visibility on our part of the river was poor those drivers needed our prayers too.
     
    We have some new changes coming at church and I am taking over the Mutual Care role. Those little old ladies I care about I will now care for. It is an extension of what I have always done on an informal basis, but as usual there are reams of paperwork to do too. So many criminal checks, working with children checks, working wit the elderly checks etc. Makes me wonder if people are put off helping because it all has to be so formalized. Never mind, as usual it is what it is..
  10. swilkinson
    Just had a couple of sad days, an old friend died, I didn't get invited to a 50th birthday party while some of my friends did,life is not happening in the way I want it to. Nothing major, just the usual small stuff. The sorting out and throwing away is also getting to me. It is so relentless. I hate to see things Ray valued just thrown away but it all has to go eventually, I know that. So much bad news lately, it seems as if the world is less stable than usual.News of illnesses suffered by old friends, cancer etc also destabalizes my world.
     
    I guess it is partly the change of the seasons, my body telling my head that there are worst days to come. I hate the thought of winter but will have to plan some brief get-aways if I can. Maybe four days down at Shirley's place will cheer me up? It is sunny and clear outside, cooler than a week ago so definitely autumn rather than summer. I am loving th warm days and cool nights. Wish it would last. I have a lot of outside work to do and some work still under the house. The "scrappies" are still around a few hours a week. They have taken a lot of metal but that is okay. I know some people would argue that I could have sorted it and sold it myself but I am really not that organised. It is better that it just goes.
     
    The roofer has now started the cabin roof but we had an incident last Saturday. He turned back the canvas and looked under and out popped a possum with a baby. I know in some countries possums are considered vermin but here our marsupial possums are considered valued wildlife so I rang the various animal rescue organisations in the hope they could be relocated. One organisation finally told me that if we caught them they would mind them for a few days until the new roof was on and the place possum-proofed.
     
    The roofer who is a man of a great range of talents, he turned possum hunter, took a lunge at Momma and off she went. My grandson Oliver thought it all a great joke, he located Momma under the eaves of the cabin, cute face peering down at him but she had abandoned baby so the roofer put the canvas back on and that was that for the weekend. The roofer didn't come Monday as he had an emergency at home due to one of his horses getting out but came back yesterday and did some more work, hopefully today will be the end of it, but the way things are going I won't bet on it.
     
    I had my grandchildren here last weekend. I only had them 10 hours Saturday till midnight and the same Sunday. Sunday was my preaching day and a baptism at Messy Church so it was full on for the weekend and Monday I was tired. It takes a lot out of me looking after the three of them. Oh how I wish Ray was the Grandpa he had hoped to be. I will never stop regretting that he was not able to fully participate in their young lives. Oh what a difference that would have made. I am sad they are growing up without their father, grandfather, uncles etc. We all seemed once so close, now we are all scattered.
     
    It is one of the curses of the modern age that everyone moves away, there is no village full of people you knew and grew up with. There are not the family gatherings with Granny's house as a meeting place, no extended family to support you. As a widow I feel the pain of that too. No supportive sister and brothers, no contact with a lot of people who grew up with your husband and can share those precious memories. I hate that feeling of being cut off from the family now they all live at some distance away. Phone calls are not the same. I miss the noise and chat of Lucas's visits, I miss watching Alice grow week by week. I miss the relationship I once had with my other son, and of course I miss my daughter and her family. (Okay, vent over)
     
    One sad thing we found was a cut out doll's house, all ready for those future grand daughter's he knew he would have. Made me think that everyone has those "ideals for the future" and how we , through our circumstances, fail to grasp them.
     
    Am I getting better at the single life? No I don't think so. Like the caregiver's life it is more a kind of resignation, what ever will be will be, rather than a joyful acceptance.
  11. swilkinson
    I was saddened today to read Ann's post on the passing of Will Furia, our hostwill, another good soul who put his spare time into helping others on here. I remember having a chat with Will one night and he said he had a soft spot for Australia as one of his distant ancestors was Captain James Cook who on one of his journeys mapped the east coast of Australia and is credited as the "discoverer". Of course we are moving away from being discovered now, our aboriginal Australians had been here 40,000 years by the time the good Captain got here. Hostwill was a good man, kind, caring and committed to helping others, that made him pretty special and I am glad I got to know him.
     
    Life goes on here. Last week for me was mostly about clearing things out, with helping my daughter-in-law Pam with the garden on Monday, church activities on Tuesday and last Wednesday till Monday cleaning up under the house and cabin and filling the 3 cubic metre skip I hired for a week. I must say when it first came I was worried and wondered what I had don but although It was expensive to hire today when I saw it leave, filled to the brim I realised it was worth all the aches and pains and heartache to know I had finally made a start on the cleanup. If I am to sell this house there is much more of a similar nature to be done.
     
    I was fortunate to have the help of some "scrappies", people who salvage metal.Unfortunately every piece of wood, every strip of metal,every "saved" item that I threw out reminded me of Ray and how he had brought home all these treasured pieces. He was so sure they would all come in handy one day. And so they would have if he had not had the stroke in 1990, if he had not had the two major strokes in 1999, if he had not lost the use of his left side, left leg, left hand etc .It was heart-breaking, throwing away piece by piece what would have been parts of sets of drawers, book shelves and doll's houses for the girls all lovingly hand crafted by Ray's skillful hands. I think of all our grandkids missed out on because of the strokes - knowing the pre-stroke Pa Ray is the major one.
     
    I know we probably threw out a lot of stuff that could have been recycled or I could have sold but I need the space in the garage so I can move the boxes from the cabin and sort them out.This is so the ceiling can be replaced in the cabin after the roof has been fixed. I could not have done it alone and the scrap metal men with their sorting skills were needed to keep me on track. I had to look away when one of Ray's many treasures was thrown in the skip and keep my thoughts to myself. I did have a few restless nights while we were doing this, it is not easy to throw away a thirty year accumulation of one's loved one's trash and treasure but it had to be done. I know Ray would have hated it.
     
    Of course there are at least two more skip loads to be done before the accumulation is gone. I do have someone coming from the local Men's Shed to look at some of the plywood (they are making possum boxes to house possums on one of the Wildlife Reserves) and there are some things I will keep in the hope that Trevor will come back and get them but at least it is a start. There is also still some of Mum and Dad's stuff stored up in the cabin so it is decision time, what will I keep, what will I have to get rid of...sigh. There will be some room for some keepsakes in the house but I really do need to "let go" of a lot of what was once family every day use items. How many saucepans, plates, mugs, glasses etc do you really need when there is just one of you?
     
    The boxes in the cabin mostly contain excess household items, and of course boxes and boxes of books but a lot of that will be recycled through our church Op Shop and other charities. The charities here are supporting the poor as they will do for a long time with money so tight. I love all the little old ladies who look after our church's charity shop... they are cheerful, diligent, wise old heads and with time on their hands after nursing husbands, mothers etc like me they are born volunteers and enjoy the day in the shop. Like so many others they live alone and enjoy the socializing as well as the feel-good sensation that you get from helping others. Volunteers, worth their weight in gold.
     
    It was Lions Youth of the Year dinner last night, hosted by our Lions Club. I always see one of my daughter's teachers at those combined dinners and an old friend of Ray's. Both asked how I was coping and I put on my social face and said: "Just fine." but of course we all know that isn't so. Like everyone else I have my ups and downs. Today the sun is shining and the birds are singing and I AM fine. Last week the rain was falling and I was doing what felt like getting rid of Ray one piece at a time...not so fine. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
     
    There have been a lot of changes in my life recently. The moving of Trevor and his family to Broken Hill at the end of January was hard and yesterday my son Steven and his new partner moved to Adelaide. That leaves Pamela and her three children and me on this part of the coast. It is unsettling to me not to have the boys close by. It has always been a reassurance as I knew I had help if it was needed. Now I have to rely on help from friends who are not as reliable and not obliged to help. I know a lot of others are in the same situation so I am not alone in this. But it does give me a kind of helpless feeling.
     
    As we all know the only person we can rely on in the end is ourselves. We sometimes get help from friends but mostly we have to pay for work to be done. I am now at that stage, plan out a job, figure out how much it will cost and if I can afford it, get it done. Apart from that I just have to get used to being on my own and being self-reliant.
     
    I know this is a safe place to vent, whine, complain, reflect and occasionally share my good times. People here understand what I am going through. I guess it makes me appreciate my friends at Strokenet even more.
     
    * I rewrote a blog I did yesterday into this new blog. Somehow what happened yesterday did not seem as important today.
  12. swilkinson
    Sometimes I pray for a miracle and what I get is something like one of those old black and white comedy movies with strange characters doing strange things. For the last two days a local "scrappie" (metal collector) and his mate has been helping me clean up under the house and cabin and fill a 3 cubic metre skip (bin) which is parked outside my house. Drop off was this Wednesday, pick-up next Wednesday.
     
    When the bin came I was appalled at what I had done. There sat the bin, huge empty and rusty, I had to fill it up but how? I knew when it was collected it would only contain what I had been able to put in myself. And under the house and cabin was heaven only knows what, valuable, valueless, wood, iron, steel, aluminium and plastic, all of Ray's "bits that will come in useful one day" collection. Plus old doors, windows, screen doors etc, a huge pile of junk on three different parts of the block. It gave me goosebumps to just contemplate the job ahead. So where to start? Anywhere would do I guess.
     
    Along came a metal collector. He saw the collection of old aluminium frames I had laid by the bin and asked if I had any more. This was a one woman operation on Wednesday so I said I was transferring it all from up the back. He asked to come up and see and collected some more metal stripping that Ray had for who knows what reason, saw the weights and asked if he could have those for his son, saw an old motor from a washing machine, could he have that too. Gladly I said, as long as it all goes out of the yard.
     
    This time last week I had high expectations of the cabin roof being fixed at last. The roofer Mark was to have the materials here on Wednesday and by Friday it would all be done! Alas from Monday this week we have had rain every day.It has not rained all day every day but a couple of days it did rain all day and it was definitely cold as well as wet.
     
    Thursday morning I did my first Scripture class at one of the local schools. I had lots of fun with the children, came home, had coffee and changed. Back to the piles of rubbish again. I was just wondering what to do next when in came a light truck, Another scrappie. He looked at the bin, looked at me and asked: "Mind if I help?' Wow, could have knocked me down with a feather. He was a largish man, said he had been a security guard, said he thought he had met one of my sons, vaguely remembered picking up stuff here once before. Well, he did know what was what, asked if he could have all the copper, brass and aluminium and anything that he thought was okay that I did not want. We worked side by side for three hours before the rain came down heavily and I decided enough.
     
    Today he brought a mate who wanted some old decking I had under the back of the house and said he would help in exchange for taking it. So three of us, working for three hours put quite a dent in the piles. Even when we have filled up the bin there will be a lot left behind but I do have a couple more people coming. The local Men's shed people are making possum boxes for the local Wildlife Sanctuary out of plywood and I have lots of that so hopefully they will take some of that away for me. There is another friend who wants some too but he is away this week so can't shift it till next week.
     
    It was strange working alongside two men I hardly know but they were kind, courteous and quite funny as they exchanged jokes and worked out what some of the strange objects were in Ray's old toolboxes. I am keeping tools, boxes of spanners, some of the old saws, shovels and other gardening tools. I am only keeping things I can use or what I still want for the boys and Shirley. Some of them were my Dad's moved here when Mum's house was sold. Of course I will have to have another down-size later, this is just the start.
     
    It has been sad in a way seeing things Ray prized as they really are now, old, rusty, way past their useful life BUT some of it will be recycled by the young men and their families benefit from the extra pocket money Dad had earned on his days off. I do care about what is happening, I realise that if Ray had not had the strokes life would have been very different and a lot of what has been thrown out as useless would have been made into toys, boxes, sets of drawers, doll's houses for the girls etc as he had planned when he stored all of these materials. It was fate that intervened.
     
    I can no longer live in the "if only" state, I have to be practical and cut my losses. One day I will want to move and that means all of this will have to be cleared out. So at least I have made a start now. And thanks to the suggestions of the girls in chat quite a few people found a bargain at the side of the road.
  13. swilkinson
    I read about stroke depression and I do not have that reason for feeling blue. The sun is shining, the birds are singing but still some days I feel sad. I have a roof over my head and warm blankets and nice food but still some days I feel bad about life. I guess that is part of the human condition. I miss Ray, I miss someone to talk things over with, I miss someone who is on my side. I miss being part of a couple, I miss the real Ray, the laughing guy I married when I was 21.
     
    I miss all the plans we had, especially the plan for growing old together. I miss my dreams of the trip around Australia, fishing, swimming, just lounging around in a sunny spot in winter or cooler spot in summer. Who stole my dream? I think it died in 1999 when Ray had the major strokes, that somehow I learned to live with that loss as I took care of him and in the end I did not think about it at all, just maintaining his life was more important than worrying about what we had lost.
     
    Everyone says that the second year of widowhood is worse and it is in a way because that is when you get to the realisation that they are never coming back, that this is it, you are on your own now. That is when the "new normal" is here to stay and that only with a huge effort can you change that. This is it girl, you are on your own, no-one to discuss things with, no-one to be the one that cares for you in that special way, no-one to tell you to "go to sleep and forget about it" when someone hurts your feelings or you feel as if you have been insulted or no-one appreciates you.
     
    In fact you are now not special to anyone in that special way it is true in relationship, no-one can take the place of your spouse/life partner, not even another new partner. My, my am I feeling sorry for myself? Yes I am. Summer is here and there is no-one to go on a picnic with, no-one to watch out for me if I go body surfing at the beach, no-one to suggest a movie or to read with while I sit on the verandah or out in the the sun. I was sitting on my front verandah yesterday and suddenly I was so lonely. I am not depressed, I am simply sadder some days. On those days I feel like nothing is ever going to be right again. It is a real pity party and I don't have them often but like everyone else I do have them. And there is no-one here to tell me to "snap out of it" now.
     
    I am a brave face person. I know I have been chided for that on here and in real life but it is the way I get by. If you have seen the movie "Strictly Ballroom" you know what I mean when I say I go out with my "happy face" on. It is how I was brought up. You left the house with a smile on your face however you felt. And so I still do. No-one knows the heartache because you don't let it show. And why do you not let it show? Maybe it is because both Mum and Dad lost a parent at 16, Mum lost her Mum and Dad lost his Dad. And being English they were taught not to express their feelings in public and we were taught that too.
     
    By the way I do get on from day to day. I do community work, I did church visiting yesterday, three little old ladies , well older than me, in their little villas or their comfy room in the hostel of the retirement village where Mum was in the nursing home. Maybe I should have asked myself was this a good day to go as I probably did get sadder as I visited them and heard their problems with staff, their loneliness and in one case the joy as she told me was going out on Sunday, first time for a couple of months. I try not to identify too closely with them but sometimes that happens and I wonder if I will end up like them, in a single room with the family far away and having to wait until they are ready to visit.
     
    Just as the first signs of Spring show in the northern hemisphere the first mists of Autumn show up in my valley, showing that winter is soon to be the reality of life. It is common to be a little sad as the seasons change as change is inevitable in our lives. Change is the only invariable, there will be changes, in our body, in our mind, in all our lives. I do try to do as Asha says and "go with the flow", I do use my faith to know that I am never alone, G-d is always with me. But sometimes that doesn't help. I just feel sad and lonely. I know that if changes are to be made it will take an effort on my part and I will make some mistakes along the way.
     
    One of the stroke survivors posted a thread asking what you do if you feel depressed? I have a lot of things I can do, like ring a friend, read, do some housework, play some music, sing and dance around the house when I am in the right mood. What I don't have is someone to act as a mood booster, someone to take me out of myself, to put an arm around me as Trev used to do or smile and make silly faces at me like Lucas used to do. yes, I am missing Trev and Edie and their family too.
     
    I can get out into the garden, though until it rains nothing much is going to grow, the annuals are drying out and dying, that happens in a drought year which is what 2014 seems to be. And that in itself brings a sadness as I love my garden and want it to grow and thrive. So one of the usual pleasures is not there, I do not have an incentive to garden until we have a good soaking rain and everything greens up again. So I should take myself to the municipal gardens and enjoy them while the summer roses are blooming as mine aren't doing so well.
     
    Nothing special I have to do today, although there are some church events tomorrow. That is the routine part of life, go here, do that, help out somewhere else. It is not a bad life, it is a good life, but sometimes it is a lonely life too.
  14. swilkinson

    The hard yards

    By swilkinson,

    It is strange watching someone else do the hard yards. As a long term caregiver for a stroke survivor I sometimes thought of myself as unique - well no, there are 50,000 of us just in my state who are caregivers listed as 24/7 and so entitled to a small allowance. It used to be called a "Domiciliary Nursing Allowance" and was given to people who basically were doing home nursing. I got that for a number of years as Ray got to the stage where he had to be showered etc. So I was certainly NOT unique!
     
    My next door neighbour has his elderly father living with him and brings him over here to shower him every few days. He uses the shower room that was purpose built for Ray, a room in which the person to be showered sits on a stool or in a shower chair with space all round so with a flexible hose he/she can be showered from all sides. My neighbour does this with a minimum of fuss. His dad emerges clean, in clean clothes and as chirpy as ever. No fuss.
     
    My neighbour has been on his own for years and is struggling with all the usual issues entailed in housing and looking after a frail aged person with limited abilities. Some days he comes over for a few minutes and shares his present worries with me knowing that I have been there and done that. He has a much less emotional, more practical approach to looking after his Dad than I had with Ray but has very similar problems so I am able to make some suggestions for making care easier for him. But he also works full-time from home so he is working 10am till 7pm with a couple of breaks for meals in order to keep his income flowing in. It is certainly hard to do that.
     
    Like me he has others in the family who he had hoped would take turns in looking after his Dad as that had been the original agreement. Of course that is not happening and there have been no weekend breaks where the others have taken over care and so his breaks are few. One solution is he returns his dad to his original home and one brother calls in twice a day for a couple of days. This is limited of course so he is now looking for respite and having the usual guilty feelings about not being able to do 24/7 care for as long as it takes. The physical and mental side of looking after someone who needs 24/7 care we all know about here but it is strange looking at it from the outside as I do now.
     
    I am just rolling along, going with the flow as I have learned from Asha. Yes, I do have some problems but they are not pressing ones and I am managing to sleep through some nights. I miss Trev and family and have the usual worries about my other son but on the whole I am okay. I did have a bit of a melt-down on Sunday night. I had been with some friends, all couples, all discussing Valentine's Day, what they had given or been given, what they had done together. As a widow there were no phone calls, no cards, no presents, nothing at all happening it was another nothing day for me. But that will happen now.
     
    I am slowly assessing what I need to keep in my life and what I want to let go of. I need to do a major declutter of the house, maybe rearranging the paperwork from one room to another is not what I need to do, more of getting it to leave the house all together is what I need to do. I confess I am a pack rat and it pains me to get rid of books I have reread a dozen times, clothes I might one day fit into and some of my older furniture that is not as functional as it used to be but still has sentimental value. Yes, it is time for a clean-up while the weather is cooler and before wet and windy winter keeps me inside.
     
    The garden too needs a tidy up and I am finally going to get rid of part of an old wire fence that is full of grass and old vines. I started that yesterday and filled our green waste bin in a couple of hours. It was humid yesterday so I had a couple of showers and finished the day squeaky clean. Today I can feel all those muscles that you use for pulling out long grass and not much else. If you are looking at snow think of your July and you will know where I am at right now.
     
    My children are over looking at me as a widow who needs some consolation now. I am just "Mum is on her own now" as my daughter put it.So all assume that if there is no emergency I am doing fine. Yes I am, fine but often lonely or feeling out of step with the rest of the world. As we know caregivers lose friends and the longer you care the longer you are out of the loop. But that's life and we jut have to make the best of it.
  15. swilkinson

    back home again

    By swilkinson,

    I was down at my daughter Shirley's for just over a week.and as usual It was hard to come home, to leave the family that I have been having fun with and make the tiring journey back but I know that they have to go on with their busy lives and I am not able to stay. I still miss having someone here when I get home and I suspect I always will.
     
    But this time I met a friend coming up the road to see if I was in and went to her place for a cuppa and a chat so all was well and I did have someone to tell about the past week. It made for a better homecoming. I was glad to get home but sad to see that as we had not had ANY rain while I was away some of my more delicate pot plants had given up on life. My next door neighbour did put the mail and papers inside so the house yard didn't look neglected but didn't think to water anything in the garden.
     
    Once back home it didn't take me long to feel as if I had never left, doesn't that get to you sometimes that the happy times fade so fast? So on with life I go. Rang a few people to catch up on the latest news, read the blogs and did the blog report to the best of my ability. I rang Trevor at Broken Hill and they are having a heatwave, over 112 day before yesterday, and very hot all week. The people in places like Arizona know that well I know but their air conditioner on the house they rent is not working properly and they are really feeling the heat after the milder weather we have on the coast.
     
    I got to thinking while I was away about how it is to feel inactive and still feel worthwhile. A few of my older friends are feeling this now particularly as they feel more housebound in our present weather. If they feel the heat and don't go out as much in summer it is easy to get something similar to cabin fever. It is caused by their isolation and the fact that through the holidays ( school is just back after six weeks of summer holidays) they hear from their family less than usual.
     
    I was wondering if we should do a ring-around in summer, maybe from church, to see if everyone is okay? It is easy to just assume everyone is busy in summer, as we are, and not realise they are isolating themselves. I guess the same applies to those who are snowbound in the northern winter. What does it mean to be isolated and at an age when you no longer reach out to others, your contemporaries having gone, moved or just no longer ring, and how do we overcome that? I ask that question here as a lot of caregivers and survivors are in that position because of their circumstances and it is worth thinking about. It is another one of those "How do you show you care" questions.
     
    I also realise I no longer anticipate good times. Those years of caregiving taught me not to expect a lot of life. I don't know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. I know it is better to take life as it comes, the bad mixed in with the good but in a way I want to return to that joy of living I had as a teenager ( once I got over the angst) and look ahead with hope. Maybe that will come in time. Only one letter among the mail, mostly government information letters and the usual bills to be paid so nothing to look forward to in that. Remember letters, those precious ones from your bestie" or your beau?
     
    I rang the Broken Hill family and caught up with their news and then chatted with my other DIL on Facebook. It is a bitter sweet homecoming but I know how it will be now, no-one here to talk to and after being with one of my families I do really miss the household chatter. My little grand daughter particularly sitting next to me and saying "listen Granma" and sharing her day after school. That took me back to my own children coming home and sharing the news. Make me a bit nostalgic as she so reminds me of her Mum at the same age.
     
    So I am glad to be back, looking forward to church ( I missed two Sundays) and the regular routine of life. We are still on daylight saving until April so still a lot of long summer days ahead but with no-one to share it with it is not quite the same.
  16. swilkinson
    I read all the blogs full of angst from many of you who are living in the twilight zone of caregiving and wonder why I do not feel happy and settled and glad not to be a caregiver now. But somehow I don't feel like that, life after being a long term caregiver is full of a whole new set of anxieties and problems. So I think that while we are full-time caregivers the problems just compound faster than in the rest of our lives.
     
    Where does time go? Summer is flying by at a great rate. I seem to be fairly busy but a lot of that is due to Trevor and Edie moving as I have been there a lot. Love getting into the swimming pool on a hot day. I have Trevor here for a few days as he is cleaning the house now. It is important to leave it clean and tidy as your reputation as a renter is on the line and one day they will be (hopefully) back on the Coast again. Yes, I miss Edie and the children, who left here last Thursday to drive to Broken Hill. They arrived last Friday afternoon, and moved into the house on Monday morning, now they are busy making the rented house into a home.
     
    Of course the furniture never fits as you want it to and that is another problem and although they labelled everything there are pieces missing that should have been in this box but are not. Edie rings Trevor with all her problems. I had to laugh at one side of the conversation yesterday about where the nuts and bolts for Lucas's bed would be. I though of Ray and I moving around on our own early in our marriage and then with one, two or three young children. I remembered one set of removalists wrapped the saucepan lids in towels and put them all into boxes marked linen, it took me months to find them all.
     
    I feel as if my life is being censored at the moment. I went in to see the law firm about Mum's probate this morning as there had been a glitch, not my fault but I know who will get the blame. I tried to remain calm but in the end wanted to shout: "Just get this over with". Now I know why no-one wants to be the executor of a will. Too much paperwork! It is so hard to think that this is what our life comes down to, a statement of our little assets, dividing a lifetime of work into dollars and cents. I do not want this to be the end of my Mum and Dad's earthly life. It is so mercenary.
     
    Had an emergency next door late last night. The dad of our next door neighbour is staying with him and the son had gone out to dinner thinking all would be well as his dad was settled in bed. The old father fell down the side of the wall next to the bed and got trapped there. I could hear a faint cry and that was him bellowing for help. I am glad I have keys as that meant I went over, saw where he was wedged and bellowed myself, for Trevor to come and help. We got him up and back into bed between us. It turned out that his Vitacall pendant was attached to the bed but at the angle he was at when he had slid down the side it was well out of his reach.
     
    This morning our neighbour came in to say "thank you". I do shudder when someone says their parent would have gone into care if it were not for kind neighbours. A kind neighbour is often a little old lady like me. We are really willing to help but if Trev had not been here I would have had to call an ambulance. It makes me remember back to Ray's many hair-raising episodes and shudder again. My neighbour also asked for a list of nursing homes close by as his sister says they need to be planning for the future. Sad eh?
     
    I am off next week to Shirley's and will be staying for a week. I don't know why it always seems difficult to find a mutually agreeable time but it does. My two grandchildren will no doubt fill my ears with their plans and hopes and dreams for the coming year. I hope so. I do so enjoy being with them and hope that the feeling is mutual. And it is nice to spent time with my daughter and son-in-law too.
  17. swilkinson

    practical matters

    By swilkinson,

    I think in 44 years of marriage and 13 years as a caregiver I lost who I was supposed to be. I am slowly rediscovering my likes and dislikes and without changing too much will slowly adapt my surroundings to reflect who I am today, still a mother, grandmother, friend and companion to some but no longer a daughter or a wife. It is hard to know what a 66 year old widow is supposed to do but for me that is simply get on with life and see what happens. Who I am is still involved in being a church worker and a member of many organizations. I still want to feel that the things I do are worthwhile. But I think there will be another element when I have matured a bit more into the next stage of my life, I want to feel that I am Sue who is okay on her own, strong enough to cope. I see it in other older widows and some day others will see it in me.
    This week I went to do a hospital visit with our assistant minister, she is acting as locum while our rectory family are taking a break. The person we went to see had had a heart attack and was in Intensive Care so we needed a reason to be there. She introduced herself as the local minister for our area and me as her "pastoral care worker" and we were allowed to go in even though it was family only. It is a long time since I've been called a pastoral care worker as it was one of the things I gave up when Ray had the strokes so I know I can fit back into that role if I wish to. I might need to do some more training but I guess that would have to be factored in. It is another "love job" as a volunteer with no pay but if it is what I want to do that is not a consideration.
    I want to find a new normal, a life that seems more mine and yes still think it needs to be productive too. I am gradually making changes and would like to include some fun events too. At the moment I am ready to try a few new things and if they are not for me I hope I can recognise that and move on. A quote from Jean Riva's blog on another site says: "You don't have to do it right the first time." so that give me permission to experiment a bit and find new areas of interest to be explored. I guess that fits in with rebuilding my life using a new pattern. I know I can't go back to who I used to be, my body will not push those bounderies any more but I still think happiness is possible in my more mature years.
    I had a visit from Trevor and Alice yesterday. Trevor, Edie and family move at the end of next week and I am going to miss them so. Trevor was so good to me when I was looking after Ray and before that when I was looking after Dad and Mum. He could always get my Dad to have a shower on Saturdays. He called it "boys in the bathroom time". Just someone helping out by doing something like that helps a lot and I was glad to have a son who really cared about the practical care. A lot of people wished us well but did nothing practical to help us.
    Just had a message on Facebook to say a friend died this morning, his wife was on here as Bazane...Barry had a long fight with cancer as well as stroke defects and Anne had been his caregiver for a long time. She is one of the few Aussies I stay in touch with that I met on this site. Now that part of their journey together is over and like me she has to go on alone. I am glad I have been able to keep in touch with a lot of people who were on here in the past and so keep up with what is happening in their lives now. Being on the other side of the world from my many American friends means distance keeps us apart but we can still cherish the friendships by other means of communications. You know I have so many of you in my thoughts and prayers.
     
    I have just packed the Christmas tree and the decorations away for another year. I put the tree up and the family took that as a sign that I was okay now. I didn't disillusion them. To tell you the truth I didn't really want to celebrate Christmas at all, it just seemed like too much of an effort but it is a family bonding time and also as we all say, I did it for the sake of the grandkids. I hope by this time next year I have decided some positive steps to take to make life okay again.
     
    This is my preaching day so two services down and another to do at six o'clock tonight. We are in what are called "low Sundays" the time of minimum congregation. That is okay, I don't want big crowds, just a handful of people to talk to is fine. It seems to have gone well today. I don't rival Billy Graham or whoever the top preacher is today, I guess my sermons are much like these blogs, full of common sense learned from the struggle that life has been . We all like to use our experiences to help others so I do that is a way too. It is good that we here are all overcomers.
     
    I have learned so much from Ray's stroke experiences and my experiences as a caregiver and I am grateful for those life lessons and for all of you who have helped me on the journey..

  18. swilkinson
    I just listened to "Auld Lang Syne" on Julie's blog. It is lovely to look at but it suddenly struck me that It is so UNLIKE our New Year. We are in the middle of summer. Our country is full of heat haze and humidity at this time of the year. We are lucky if we have a cool breeze rippling the ocean when we brave the hot sand to go down to the beach. And some nights the heat hangs heavy on us like a blanket and there is not even a whisper of a breeze.
     
    When we lived inland,we experienced more extremes but it was a dry heat, with far too many sunfilled summer days. We had to drive more than an hour to the next small town and when driving watched as heat mirages playing over a red sandscape, at noon the leaves of the eucalypts hung limp in the hot dry air by the dried up creekbeds and as you drove through the bush and at night we watched the television news to see brumbies (wild horses) rushing ahead of flames in the bushfires in the Snowy Mountains.
     
    Our New Year is not about snow and ice here it is about blue water and blue skies or dust clouds and cattle wandering towards the waterhole where the kangaroos have already assembled for their last drink of the day. I have lived on the coast, inland in the semi-arid country and in the temperate zone near our National Capital. I have had Christmas and New Year in different environments. I just wish I had taken enough pictures to compile a southern hemisphere New year for you to see.
     
    I am thinking of this now as the time approaches for Trevor and family to move to Broken Hill, out in the red sand country. Broken Hill made it's name with the mining of iron ore. That industry has died down now so the city is shrinking as miners leave to go to other places. The city thrives on tourists who come to see the Menindee Lakes and stop at Pro Hart's famous studio. Pro has died but art is still important and a band of artists called the "Brushmen of the Bush" produce great landscapes for city folk to buy. Edie's Mum is a painter and hopes to be able to capture some of that untamed red landscape and learn more about the people and history of the Inland. She will be the babysitter for Alice and watch Lucas when he comes home from school.
     
    A lot of Australians do not venture west of the Great Dividing Range. They are happy to live in the coastal cities and spend holidays visiting a different part of the coast. Our Grey Nomads, the retirees and early retirees, in their caravans and campervans do venture west and enjoy the "bush" but in the cooler months of the year, not this time of the year when the heat is extreme, only those who live and work there become acclimatised and thrive in the hot, dry inland.
     
    I wonder why we treat the world as if it has just one hemisphere when it has two? Maybe the contrast of summer and winter is too hard to imagine and we just see what is true for us? I like it when I get Power Point Presentations with all the continents of the earth represented, Canada and the Americas, Europe, Asian, the Scandinavian countries and those we once lumped under the label "Russia" and the Pacific Islands including Australia and New Zealand. Seeing them we do remember it is one world. And if we remember it is one world and what we do to the land, the sky and the sea transcends our borders and affects others maybe we will be more careful in what we do. I want the world to be beautiful for my grandchildren and great grandchildren to enjoy.
     
    As I age I change my views on life. Once I was very nationalistic as we all are when we are young, now I think I see a wider view of life, and when I see the world as it is seen from space I realise there are no borders, no walls or fences that separate us from our neighbours except those we have put up ourselves. Fences and borders keep other people out but they also keep us in, prisoners in our assigned places.
     
    When I came to this house 45 years ago we had simple wire strung fences. Sure we knew where our boundaries were but we didn't build solid six foot fences to shut our neighbours out, we needed our neighbours. We all worked together to form our neighbourhood and our community. We actually knew our neighbours by name back in those days and talked to them over the fence, at the local store, when passing in the street and at local functions. Now we seem to move from our air conditioned houses into our air conditioned cars and the most we do is waved from behind those tinted windows.
     
    As a widow I often don't speak face-to-face to another human being in a day. I do speak to the dog next door who seems to find her way out of her new fenced in yard over to my place on a regular basis. I speak to the cat from the house on the top side who often sleeps on a chair on my back verandah. I do speak to neighbours when I see them, wave to them as they back out of the driveway to go and pick kids us or go shopping. But it is not the neighbourhood I grew up in, the houses are bigger, the fences are higher and we are more isolated from one another. There is of course the phone and the internet so I don't feel lonely but sometimes I do feel isolated. It is not the world I grew up in.
     
    And so I have to consciously make the effort to reconnect to life. Life is not going to come to me. My old friends have not suddenly reappeared, the invitations to go, see, do have not increased. It is a Do-It-Yourself job when you are a widow to reconnect to the world around you. Being a caregiver is isolating and when that role is over I guess people just don't rush to help you change that. i find I am slowly reconnecting. I do get some invitations and take advantage of the opportunity to catch up with old friends. But there has to be more to life than that. I know there is a saying "It's a small world" but sometimes to me it looks big and scary out there.
  19. swilkinson
    It's to early to really know what life will be like in 2014. I haven't decided what my resolutions are, the choice is between "accepting challenge" and "accepting change". I know I will have to do both. The world for last year FUN became a reality toward the end of the year when at last I started to accept invitations without thought. It had taken me that long to realise I didn't have the ties, the need to get home, the need to be in a routine. I no longer had to worry about Ray and Mum. I guess that is part of my recovery.
     
    In two weeks time my younger son who was such a help to me during Ray's years of illness and his family will move to Broken Hill. That is where accepting change comes in for me. I feel probably as my Mum and Dad did when they saw my family go off to Yass, a five hour drive away and then my sister's family go off to Tasmania, a plane trip away. It is hard for parents to let their children go. For our family Christmas 2013 may have been the last time we will all be together for a while. It is sad but it is a part of life that children will grow and move away. How far away is a different matter. This is a 15 hour train journey. It is too expensive to fly as the price is geared to the mining industry not the tourist industry, so high fares.
     
    I spent New Years Eve alone. That was not so different as in previous years when Ray had been here he was in bed by 8.30pm so I had the rest of the evening alone. There was a very noisy band one street down and I could hear the words of the songs even in the bathroom so I didn't feel alone, I felt as if I was in an auditorium! The music went on till 2am! Then some of the guys talked loudly in their backyard so sleeping was not an option. It did remind me that young people like noise and old people like peace and quiet...lol.
     
    Yesterday I did chat with our regulars plus Sandy (SandyCaregiver) who was able to come in for a while. I then went off to visit old friends for lunch. It was a a pleasant afternoon, we swam in their pool, had a light dinner and came home. I had a long chat to MaryJo on Facebook late in the evening (morning her time), we are both widows now, both looking for what will happen next in our lives. Our conclusion is that you just go on with what has to be done and if changes come you just try to cope with them in the same way as you always have, one thing at a time.
     
    Accepting challenges. There are events ahead of me, moving is possible one of them. I know I will not be able to improve this house, could never afford to re-roof or put in all new windows, painting both the interior and exterior will be needed soon, re-carpetting and other large expenses. The decision will be: to move or not to move. Ray and I purchased this house in 1969. We lived in it all but 10 1/2 years of our married life. It is our unique family home. It is also over 60 years old in parts and the wild coastal weather has nor been kind to it so it is somewhat weather beaten. If I sell it the new owner will either renovate extensively or knock down and rebuild a McMansion like the one recently built next door. I am too old to want to make either of those choices.
     
    Another challenge that is more personal is how to fill my time. I like to do something that I consider worthwhile. I know that if I put out an availability sign I could find myself working for any number of charities. Charities are always after wiling workers. There are so many people of my age living the life of Riley, jaunting off overseas, going around Australia in a caravan, fishing, bowling, playing golf that the community-minded, settled people in my age group are few and much in demand as charity workers. The problem is I don't really want to be too tied down so any charity I join will have to be pretty flexible. So that is a challenge both in matching my abilities to what needs to be done and finding a charity where I can work the hours I have available.
     
    The next challenge is maintaining my health, physical and mental. One friend told me you have to put all the energy you put into taking care of Ray into taking care of you now. What she didn't understand was that taking care of Ray was crisis driven. We seemed to lurch from one emergency to another in the last five years of his life and that meant thinking on my feet all the time. I need to look at maintenance not crisis care for myself. And I don't know a lot about that. That is where I wish I had someone to confide in. Instead I have a lot of more distant friends who I can interact with but not on that intimate basis. Okay, another thing to get used to.
     
    Challenge number three is in maintaining relationships. The people I once thought of as good friends left long ago but recently I have had a couple of tentative reconnections, people I was friends with from before Ray got really ill who wonder if I would like to do ...whatever it is they do. In some cases the answer is yes but you know I don't feel as if I can trust them. It is a strange feeling, they are as they have always been but I am no longer the person they used to know. Caregiving and all the challenges it presents does change you, it both softens you and hardens you. In my case it made me more compassionate and more cynical. Listening to health care workers and their grasp of unreality tends to make you listen very carefully for sincerity in others. So are these old friends worth spending time with? I don't know.
     
    So that is my thoughts on the New Year. I wish you all a Happy New Year and the ability to cope with the choices and challenges ahead of you.
  20. swilkinson
    The noise stopped at 10.30am this morning (27th) as the last family members left. I survived, I only had a couple of bad moments and managed to hide for a few minutes so no-one knew. It was wonderful to have so many happy moments. Once again no mention of Ray but there were stories from the past shared by brother and sister. Our older son did not come except to drop his children off yesterday. He didn't even come into the house. So still some sadness about that.
     
    Christmas Day turned out well. Children's Church 6pm Christmas Eve was a huge success, kids so enchanting in the Christmas Story play. Many neighbourhood people that come to Messy Church or our Market Days came with their children, not really being used to church but wanting to be there. Lots of laughter and the singing was football crowd rather than heavenly choir but they all joined in. Then Christmas morning threatened to be a disaster as very low numbers when the service started, but more families came five or ten minutes into the service. It was the fourth service in 24 hours but enough people came to make it worth while. There is such a lot of preparation goes into these four services that it is nice when people say they enjoyed it all. Makes it worth the time and effort somehow. I was a part of two of them and although it is tiring it is part of the tradition of the church I belong to so I gave of my best.
     
    Family lunch at Pamela's, but actually only me eating as they had had brunch instead but fun with the kids before their father (my older son) rang asking for them to be taken to his place and then I stayed on for a while to keep Pamela company. Came home to prepare for the rest of the family to arrive and when they did more fun, food and laughter. Boxing Day we spent mainly in Trevor's pool, the little ones from Wyoming were dropped at 9.30am so we had all seven grandkids together. There were the usual arguments over pool toys and who splashed water into who's eyes but everyone played mad pool games and yes I did get sunburnt, didn't get the sun cream to some spots like under my arms, how did that area get burnt? Maybe when I was pushing the little ones on the Crocodile, or throwing balls from one end of the pool to the other?
     
    We did run out of towels, I gave all my large towels to Trevor so I need to stock up again for family invasions. It is amazing how much food we all ate, how much leftovers that produced, I will be eating them for the next week. It was fortunate that I was given boxes of chocolates as all my grandchildren are chocoholics so they are mostly eaten which is very good. That saves me the trauma of having them in the house calling my name at night! What will I do with some things, like most of a gingerbread house and the things I bought for them and cannot eat myself due to dietary restrictions?
     
    Did I think of Ray? All the time. It was hard not to cry when I so wanted to tell him how cute the boys and Alice were, how well the aunties and uncles interacted with the children and what fun it was to play in the pool happily for hours without any fuss or fights. I so love to have my kids together but they are OUR kids and grandkids, not just mine. I loved Naomi telling me "sorry Granma, Tori and I need to go outside and have some special time because we are girls." I love that they are bonding. And then this morning Christopher and Naomi asking their mother: "Couldn't we just stay another day?" It shows they love being here.
     
    i look around the house now and there is a lot to do to straighten it out and make it neat and tidy again but I don't care. I like it to look messy. It is a sign of a family home as opposed to the tidiness of a widow's house. I may not have them under the same roof for years to come with the coming and goings of at least two out of three families on the move but at least I have the memories of this Christmas to cling to. I love my family and have much joy in having them all together . Sad my older son does not see it the same way. So my Christmas was not peaceful but over the two days full of noise and laughter and that is as it should be.
     
    For the rest of 2013 I will take it quiet, take it slow, ponder on what has been and what may still be to come.
     
    Wishing all of you good health and happiness in 2014.
  21. swilkinson

    from life to death

    By swilkinson,

    I went to a funeral today. It was the funeral of a woman not much older than me. I had known her since I was seventeen. I remember being introduced to her as K's girlfriend. I was jealous. This was in a household of boys I always thought of as "mine". I laugh about that looking back but you know how intense teenagers can be. They moved away after they got married and I saw them only occasionally. Then he turned up in the same Dementia Lodge as Mum, pitifully aged with early onset dementia. So we got acquainted again, B and I and had some good conversations. K died before Mum, in his early 70s but looking like an old, old man. So sad. Then she was diagnosed with cancer and two years later died.
     
    I am still pondering Asha's blog to answer the question: choice or destiny? I do not know. I don't want my destiny to be a bleak road to death, on the other hand I also don't want to make choices that would blight my life. It always seems to come back to the eternal question: "Why do bad things happen to good people?"
     
    We are not bad people. Basically most of us have not done a lot to harm other folks. Of course I only know what you write about yourself, the same way you know me and of course there is a lot we don't put in our blogs. I hope I am a good judge of character and would know if you were a mass murderer or a serial killer. But I might not know. All I do really know is that we all have stroke in common. It is what brought us to this site. And we are all here looking for support. And if we are able to give support that is an added bonus.
     
    People ask me why I go to so many funerals - it is the same answer, to give support. To support the family of the deceased, to express my gratitude for whatever that person did to add to my life. I have a lot to be grateful for. B always told me what Mum had been up to when she visited. She would say things like: "Your Mum had a good meal today, she ate all her vegetables and seemed to enjoy the dessert." When people said things like that to me it gave me peace of mind.Looking after Ray as well I was not able to go to visit Mum as often as I would like to so I relied on others to tell me what Mum had been up to. B also came to Mum's funeral bringing another mutual friend with her. She was in the middle of chemo and wore a bandanna but she made the effort. So she was a good friend to me.
     
    So if you have not done any harm have you done some positive good? I think of people like Sarah on here who gives out vouchers and pays for meals as her "acts of kindness" to others she sees as being less fortunate than herself. A lot of others on here oversee elderly neighbours, support friends with cancer, ask us to join with them in praying for others. These are not "goodie-goodies" just fine citizens and really good people. Communities are built on people like them and I am so proud to know them. Just as I am proud to know so many of you, not least because you are weak but try to be strong and fight to return to good health and in doing so you motivate yourself and others.
     
    I have just had a batch of Christmas cards to open today and one struck me as very sad, a daughter writing to say that her Mum has Alzheimers, is in a dementia ward and cannot read or write now. That is sad as she is not a lot older than I am. So I need to really appreciate my present good health. I have a lot to be thankful for, and working arms and legs, a brain that works reasonably well and a good constitution are among them. i have been down for a while but think I am getting my sparkle back at last. Thanks to all who have been praying for that to happen.
     
    And so in this time of seasonal and often artificial good cheer I want to sit down and think about life and death. To really think about what I value, what motivates me and what I can do to help others to see what is good in their lives to. We all have a lot to be grateful for, we just sometimes need some other sufferer, someone in a similar situation, to point that out to us.
  22. swilkinson
    Sometimes I think about how excited I used to be when Christmas was just days away. When I was a small child my parents were not well off, we had come to Australia with very little money and I used to get just one gift, it was marked "love from Mum and Dad". I used to envy the children in our street who had aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents close by as well as their Mum and Dad who gave them presents and small keepsakes. I did have relatives but they all lived in England or Canada and we rarely got gifts from them. Of course there were many other children locally who also came from overseas, from countries poorer than ours so they too got very little in the way of presents. I could relate to them more than to my Australian neighbours in the sense that we were all isolated from so many who would have formed our family circle. And of course those our parents loved which meant that our parents were sad at Christmas time too.
     
    I learned some hard lessons when I was a child about making do with what I have. It stood me in good stead when I was looking after Ray, firstly because it stopped me wishing for things I could not have, and secondly because waiting for good things to happen was part of my nature, built on the fact that Mum and Dad had to pay everything off on one wage and so you knew that you would get certain things you needed but had to wait until they could afford it. We would never have whined : "buy me this, buy me that" as I hear children doing these day in the supermarkets, Mum would have grabbed us by the hand and marched out, angry that we had shamed her in public by showing others that we were too poor to afford all the things we wanted.
     
    One busy week to go, only ten days before it is Christmas, only a month before Trevor and Edie move to Broken Hill. Life is a mixed bag, moments of fun and laughter, times of heartache and sadness. Christmas season, the lead-up to Christmas is far too busy, the days seem to fly by and I am not ready for the actual day to come. I am trying to prepare psychologically as I know that even though this is my second Christmas without Ray it is still hard to come to terms with. The family is not the same, we have lost our heart. Without Ray at home with me the house is no longer as homely. I am certainly not the same, I am a widow and an orphan and some days that is exactly the way I feel, alone and abandoned.
     
    My adult children too suffer although I don't think any of them really knows how to express that. Of course they miss Ray but are of a generation that feels they should "move on" whatever that means. There must be a lot of people telling themselves they have moved on when really they are just walking around with a giant hole in the middle of their lives. No wonder so many people suffer from depression, I wonder if some of it is really aggravated sadness grown too big to bear? If you feel like that please get some counselling. It is possible to go on without those you love but it is very difficult and very lonely sometimes.
     
    And so each day I put on my good clothes and go on out into the world with my best smile on my face and try to treat people with respect and be sensitive to those around me. A young man who is often at our church told me recently he thought that old people looked so sad and I explained it is often because so many of their partners or their good friends have died before them and now they are left to go on alone, as I am, and it is hard to do. He did look a bit thoughtful so I hope he does make an exception to the "grumpy old men/women" theme that is popular at the moment and think of each older person as an individual with their own lives and their own thoughts and dreams.
     
    The fence between my house and the new house is finished - what a saga that was! Some things that happened, including more destruction of my side garden beds, caused me to have a meltdown on Friday and I had a huge howling fit and felt awful afterwards but it all becomes a bit too much when you discuss decisions and things are turning out very different to what you have been lead to expect. But for better or worse the fence is up! Now I need to rebuild the garden beds, hopefully for the last time. The trampled bulbs will maybe flower next year, the shrubs will still have time to put on leaf but it is too late for them to flower now. It was certainly the wrong time of the year to do all of this but what is done is done. Now I need it to rain to settle everything back in.
     
    Actually I am glad I can find things to keep me occupied. The Lions Club Christmas Stocking ticket selling experience is bittersweet, already I have had two people come up to me with a bright smile and ask: "And how is Ray?" It is fifteen months since he died and I am not sure whether I am happy people still remember him, sad because he is no longer here, or glad he is out of pain. I have so many mixed feelings. Not all is well with our ongoing plans for Christmas Day and Boxing Day ether. Like many families we find we have a clash of plans. I am hoping it all works out so we can have a proper get-together. Christmas is supposed to be the family celebration. Or is that just what the advertisers tell us to sell their products?
     
    I am looking at life as optimistically as I can. As people pass by and call out: "Merry Christmas Sue." I reply: "And to you too". I do mean it and I try to believe it.
  23. swilkinson
    Having someone come for a visit is a good thing when you live on your own. It is company, it is noise and conversation and another face at the table. It is also hard work and fills so much of your time while they are here. I had a houseguest for a week and enjoyed it so much. For once Ray's name came up naturally and sometimes in a funny way so that we laughed. Vicki and her parents were at Ray's funeral and came the next day for a visit before driving the twelve hours back to where they live in western New South Wales. It is good friends like that that keep you going. I am glad I still have some of them.
     
    So far I have not been able to tackle the Christmas card list. I did it last year by just signing all the cards "love from Sue" or "love from Sue and family". It is harder to do that for some reason this year. I don't know whether to write a letter and enclose it or just to write something like: "I'm doing okay" and then finish "love from Sue". I know most of those on my card list do not want to know the ins and outs of my daily life, if they did they would ring me and find out what's happening in my life. They just want to know I still exist and that in the far distant future we will meet up again.
     
    The reason I know this is because that is exactly how I feel about some of the people on my list. We are no longer close, we are no longer in touch regularly, we are no longer a part of each other's lives but due to some previous closeness we do have a regard for each other. I wish I could pay a visit to each one so we could somehow resume that previous closeness. I know that is not possible, even in my present circumstances I cannot chase people all over the world. But I want to somehow resume that closeness.
     
    I sit down to write and all I want to write is that I miss Ray. I know that part of each "family" holiday is that when the family loses a loved one we still gather together but it is not the same as we still miss that person dreadfully. I have said a lot of times that my family thinks I am strong, thinks I can cope, thinks that a phone call once a week is all that is needed. And I am sad to say that at one stage of my life that was exactly what I felt about my parents. Of course they were okay. But Mum and Dad had each other for company. And that is a different scenario - I am alone.
     
    I have the three little ones coming over on Sunday so I have brought out the boxes of decorations so they can decorate the tree for me. It is always good if some members of the family will participate. Makes it still seem like a family effort and I really need that feeing of family right now. That silence that echoes in this house sometimes really needs to be lightened by the sound of other voices. When I have had visitors I really notice the silence when they have gone. I know being alone does not have to mean I have to be lonely but sometimes it does.
     
    Who do you relate to when you are alone? I know for busy caregivers there is a longing to be alone, to have some "ME" time. But after the death of a spouse or partner suddenly being alone seems totally unimportant. You desperately want them back again. You would do anything to have them back again. How foolish and perverse we all are. So many conflicting emotions, such a mixture of suffering and longing. I guess being a widow means being vulnerable to emotional pain. I never thought I would be this lonely. I always thought I would just fill my life up with busyness and that would be fine. I wonder when that changed?
     
    I used to love being here on my own, especially when I had our three children coming and going. All the weekends were so busy and I longed for peace and quiet, and now that is the way life is all the time - so quiet. I can understand why it seem as if our lives are unimportant when the major task of caregiving is over. It was my life for so long and now it is as if I have been sacked from a job I had for a long time. I am gradually learning to fill my life with busyness but busyness does not always satisfy the need to be needed that we do feel. I don't know what will change that for me. Maybe I will learn to live with silence and enjoy my single life. A lot of the older widows at my church tell me they enjoy being on their own. I am not sure they are actually telling the truth. They always seem to love joining with others for a meeting or a meal.
     
    I will try to enjoy the end of year meetings and so called Christmas parties. But know that I still feel the sadness of being without Ray and that will colour the way I see life for some time yet.
  24. swilkinson
    I was reminded how lucky I am this weekend. I had taken Vicki, the young friend who is staying with me to the Saturday markets at a friend's church. We had looked at all the stalls and were sitting having tea and scones when a man came up and sat down at our table. He obviously had brain damage and told us he had a career as a school teacher and youth worker when he was involved in a car accident that was not his fault and his whole world was turned upside down. It reminded me so much of the stories on here, how in the midst of life our world can be turned upside down, never to be the same again.
     
    I think he had his eye on Vicki as he kept telling us how good it was to have morning tea with such beautiful young ladies. One out of two ain't bad...as my Dad used to say. We also went over to Trev's and had lunch with his family.Vicki was impressed with Alice. Alice is such a funny little creature. I love her heaps and will really miss her and the rest of the family when they go tot Broken Hill. Edie is enjoying the training and knows she will have to absorb a lot of information if she is to do the job satisfactorily.
     
    On Friday I did a pastoral visit to a lady who now lives in the Dementia Lodge that Mum lived in for 8 1/2 years. It was hard to go there in a way but I was asked to visit her by our young minister who had received a call from her family saying the church didn't visit her after all her years of service etc. We would have visited her earlier if we had known she was living there but as usual no one had told us. So I was happy to go and see her. She is at the humming, mumbling stage so I did a visit where I sat alongside her and talked to her gently about what was happening around us. It is easier to do that with a stranger than with someone who is dear to you.
     
    I did two more pastoral visits in the Hostel over the road. One lady I am just getting to know, she told me she had stroke aged 36 six weeks after the delivery of her fourth child. Luckily she had family at first to look after her children and as her husband had a well-paid job they could afford to hire a housekeeper. Gradually she got some movement in her left side, enough to stand but not to walk, finally she took the first steps. It was under the direction of a PT who told her: " Never say can't, always give it a try, the more you try the more you will regain". She made that her mantra and finally could dispense with the housekeeper and just have some help in the house. Now she is 84 and knows her body is breaking down and is so thankful she has lived a long and fruitful life. It does my heart good to hear such stories.
     
    Vicki lives a long way from the coast so is enjoying visiting the beaches. She loves to explore rock pools and to just sit on the beach absorbing the sights and sounds. Today's visit was to my local beach and she saw an eel eating mouthfuls of small fish and tiny crabs scattering to get what fell from his mouth. She comes home and goes onto the internet to find names for the creatures she has seen. I am glad she enjoys holidaying with me.
     
    My latest carpenter had an "Incident" on Friday and rang yesterday to tell me he cannot take on the restoration job. This sure is turning out to be a nightmare. I want the cabin roof fixed, I need find someone who actually wants the job. My Ray would have fixed it all in a weekend and added a couple of coats of paint! Why is my man taken away from me? How fair is life? (Okay, unfair question).
     
    And so life goes on. I need to find a balance in life. Eat, sleep, pray, wake , work, play.
  25. swilkinson
    It was the anniversary of Mum's death yesterday, she died on the 20th November 2012 two months and one day after Ray died. I went to to her nursing home Carer's meeting in the afternoon. We are allowed to keep on attending the meetings for a year after our loved one dies. It is a good idea as there is still so much you want to say and the meeting is a safe environment to speak about your feelings. I find I can still help others too. It is good to still be able to use all of that experience to help others.
     
    I seem to have the jitters tonight. It is the day after the anniversary of Mum's death but it is also the first time I have been able to think about what happened. I have been ignoring it but I guess my mind just waits till I am off guard and then I am reminded again of death and loneliness and the downside of caregiving - the long adjustment afterwards. I am keeping busy as much as I can be and not be exhausted by the effort of keeping busy. It is a vicious cycle, trying to be busy, getting overtired, not being able to sleep because you are over-tired etc. it probably doesn't help that there is a storm brewing and it is humid tonight.
     
    I've had a few days this week when I find I am really feeling the loss of Ray. I know what triggered that, I went under the house to Ray's workshop to get something and there are all of the tools rusting away, the fallen down shelves, the many years of neglect. Ray used to spend a lot of time under the house in his workshop, we used to laugh that he was "sorting his nails" as at one stage he did try to sort them by size and purpose. But mostly prior to the 1999 strokes he used it as a refuge, to get away from the rest of us for a while.
     
    When Ray had the strokes in 1999 he no longer went under the house unless he came with me when I needed to find something. When he stopped going under thereTrevor and I did try to keep things nice at first but it all became too much. Now there is very little of any value down there. I will have to sort it all out at some stage, at the moment it is in the too hard basket. The best I can do is just a general tidy up as I don't know what is there that is of value and what is not. And when there is very heavy rain as there was last week we do get some seepage so the rust cycle goes on.
     
    Then of course there is still the problem of the cabin roof, I did get a phone call from the guy who thought it would be easy to fix, he was keen but the carpenter that usually works with him has too much work on and would not be available till after Christmas! Does it frustrate me - oh yes indeed. I want my backyard to look neat and tidy but there is the problem of the cabin roof, the half-cut down tree (loong story) the mess in the back of the cabin, the trampled down garden, on and on. I would make a list and cross things off as I fix them but the priority is still the roof and I cannot get that fixed it seems.
     
    On an interesting note the fencing is beginning next door, just this afternoon two panels appeared on top of the retaining wall out front of the new house. It is a wooden panelled fence, solid, brown and a lot taller than I thought. I am hoping it will be sturdy enough to stand up to the blustery winds, that is will not rot, or drop panels and a thousand other things. My imagination runs along very pessimistic lines sometimes. I just have to have faith that it will last until I want to sell this house.
     
    I am not sure I like what is happening next door but I have agreed to have the fence put up so guess that sorted out the problem of me not liking it as I now have no choice. Where is my partner in decision making? I ask myself. It is not fair, why am I having to do this alone etc. I need to hark back to my Dad's father's favourite saying: "If you want a helping hand look at the end of your arm." I know help is not hovering around waiting for me to ask, it was never like that. If I need help with a problem I still have to ring around and finally find someone who is willing to help. Caregivers and widows have that in common. No long lines of people tripping over themselves to help out.
     
    At the Carers' meeting I went to I was reminded once again of the hard decisions we have to make, the way we as caregivers have to go the long way around a problem so as not to offend the person we care for or the others who witness what is happening. One poor lady having put her husband into care was told by a relative that they would "take him home with them and see that he got the right treatment". She was deeply hurt but sensibly said that they should see the nursing staff first. Of course the nurses presented the difficulties in a way that made the offer seems so silly. She said they didn't apologise just walked out, leaving her husband with the fantasy that they were coming back to rescue him. Sometimes it is the family that is the difficulty as much as the patient!
     
    My family seem busy with a lot of pre-Christmas activities. Trev and Edie had the water from the rain event we had last week pour into their garage and wet all the cardboard boxes they were using packing up their house to go to Broken Hill. Not a disaster but certainly inconvenient as they will have to buy more. Rain events seem more frequent this year, torrential rain as opposed to the kind of gentle rain we need. Just another example of extreme weather. I need to redig drains again as the rush of water also carries silt which makes the drains more shallow and less effective. Always seems to be sometihing the householder has to do.
     
    I did have two good things happen today. I went to two lunches. I got double booked so had the main course at one club with my old church buddies, about an hours chat and then into the car and off to another club to have dessert and coffee. The reason for the split was that I wanted to see a young friend and her gorgeous red-headed baby girl, just at the staggering around stage and so cute. This little family have moved to Western Australia and the two of them were just back for a cousin's birthday party on Saturday so today was the only day they were was up here. The young Mum has lost both her parents so some of our Apex40 Club women act as spare aunties.
     
    Okay, I have had my vent, updated you on my news, now I better try and get some sleep as I know tomorrow is going to be another busy day.