Today I had a visit from an old friend, old in the sense of from a long time ago, young in the sense of who we were back in the days when I came to this area in my mid-teens. He was the younger brother of one of my friends, the young one, the teenager, when the older ones seemed like men. He knew of some of my boyfriends pre-Ray, remembered my wedding, the birth of the first two of my three children. He was going to bring his 94 year old mother to see me but she was too tired to come today so he arrived early and I didn't get to chat. Sorry to whoever was there, I did mean to do it but as he had only just arrived it seemed the wrong thing to do, to leave him on his own.

I have lived a long life, not as long as some but a life packed full of experiences, both good and bad. I was born in England and migrated with my family at the age of seven. I think I have blogged about a lot of that buried way back in the first few blogs so will not repeat those stories. Our lives are full of stories, of course we do not see them until that episode is over so the pattern of our life appears. I know there are times when we are in despair because we think things will never change, that we are stuck in this one situation forever but it is not so, life goes on and we with it.

Looking back on the 13 years I looked after Ray I am so glad now that I was able to do it. That there were always people around me trying to help in some way. For those of you in despair right now please look around at your many friends and supporters here and in your every day life. Ask for help when you need it, ask if people know where you can get help. A lot of times it was not some professional person, not a doctor or specialist but aides and nurses who told me how to find help. Often it was someone who was also a caregiver. In my earlier blogs I recorded that too, the girl who signed the forms for Ray to go to Camp Breakaway for the first time by using his dementia to get me some funding, the nurses, here and on Strokenet, who told me how to make up a bed to help make the change after an episode of incontinence easier to manage.

My visitor's mother is my daughter's Godmother. She was a good friend to my Mum so that seemed a logical choice. She had a large family and added to it whoever she saw as being in need of some family time so when I went there for a visit there were boys everywhere, as a teenage girl a dream situation...lol. So I always had a choice of dance partners, someone to join for a game of cards, someone to go for a walk with etc. It only lasted a little while and the older boys went off to start their careers and the girls stayed on to work locally as I did and the time was over. It was fun to recall all of that though, I think I had forgotten that it ever happened.

One of the older brothers was called up for National Service and finished up not in Vietnam but in a Queensland Air Base preparing helicopters for Vietnam. The other trained as a pilot but finished up as an engineer and then an instructor and also stayed in Australia. It is the accident of chance isn't it? Something we think of when we look at our lives and ask: “Why me?” or “Why not me?”

Sometimes I am seeing life a little more clearly now. It has been a long time coming, this clarity. I read on here of all the foggy situations we all find ourselves in on the medical merry-go-round, with our loved ones or in our own care situation and wish this clarity was available there too. But honestly if I had known what the future held in some parts of Ray's illness I would have fallen into despair or not been willing to continue his care knowing what was ahead so maybe it is better foggy than clear at some times in our life.

I recently went to a Memorial Service held by the local Palliative Care people. I went to accompany the friend whose 47 year old son died this year. It is a beautiful service particularly the part where the bereaved and their friends go forward to light a candle in remembrance. That is part of what I do in my blogs now, I light a candle to some part of the memories of Ray I hold in my heart. The candle burns briefly and then dies but I hope in it's brief life it was beneficial to someone else to also see that small glow.

I wonder whether my musings are relevant here now, whether I have got too far out from the coalface of day-by-day caregiving to be of any use to anyone. I hope that the encouragement and support I can offer is enough to make up for that. I do love being on here, helping in some small ways to hold the candle up high enough for someone else to see ahead.

Peace be with you all, in your daily round, enough peace to make life worthwhile even on the most frustrating day.