It has been a much better Easter than I thought it would be. In your first year of widowhood you go through so many "firsts". First time you have had a birthday since he died, first Christmas alone,then all the kids and grandkids birthdays when you send a card signed just "Mum" or "Granma". Then the first wedding anniversary, or is that unanniversary, or post-anniversary, maybe there isn't a name for that am-I-still married or ??? anniversary, that sacred rememberance of the day you both said:
I hate having those dreams where you wake up and the dream still continues. I had a nap yesterday afternoon, something woke me and I struggled out of sleep, looked at the clock and it said 5.15pm. I immediately thought: “I'd better get up and start preparing dinner, Ray will be home soon.” Home from where? Work?How stupid! Ray last drove in early April 1999.
I started crying, I guess that there is a part of me that longs for the past, not just to remember those good memories but to actually
I have finally ( I think) found a more peaceful place. I went to the old support group at Mum's nursing home and spoke about beng a widow and did not cry. I think that is progress. I think going to the grief counselling has really helped. I can now articulate what I feel and not get choked up. It was good to experience that today. One dear lady whose husband died about the same time as Ray still sits with a handkerchief to her face and cries for the hour. She is older and is lost without
I have just had two different days. The special ingredient was I got to mind my grandchildren over night on Monday and Tuesday night from 3pm – 7am so I had to concertina everything else up and keep that time free. With three children aged 11, 6 and 5, I need to make sure I can concentrate on them 100%. Tori is good and does oversee the two little boys but she has just come from a tiring day at school so I make sure it is me that does the real work and let her rest awhile.
It was the grief c
I wonder why I think if I just sit down and talk to "someone" all will be well and I will sort things out and things will be different? I had planned to talk to my daughter about the difficulties I am going through with processing my grief, the loneliness, the frustrations etc but we never seemed to have the time to just sit down and do it. A Salvation Army officer is constantly on call and as soon as she'd sit down with a cup of coffee and a free couple of hours the phone would ring and she wa
One thing you need to know about me. I never really left home, I just transferred from one home to another, from my parents home to where Ray lived, from there to our own home. I never lived on my own. I lived with Mum and Dad and my sister, then she got married a few months before me. Then there was the excitement as I planned my wedding, a short honeymoon and then it was Ray and I building our life together. I know many others of my generation did that too, of course not all of them stay
Sometimes when I am down in the dumps I examine my hurt and pain and say:"no-one truly understands" which makes me shudder when I realise how many platitudes I have used on others during their time of grief. Honestly I had lost close friends and older relatives but I never realised how different it was to lose a spouse. In my role as a Chaplain or counsellor others had come to me looking for some comfort and I hope that is what they went away with. I doubt that my "expertise" was sufficient to e
I spent some time yesterday looking through documents and old photos looking for my marriage certificate that seems to have gone missing. I shed a few tears as I saw pictures from different parts of our lives. I don't wish Ray back, not with that last year of his life being so hard, but I do wish him with me in a good way, with all his kind ways and family values.
It is hard to say: "It is just me from now on". I know that is a fact, however much my family might say: "We love you Mum" most o
Tonight we are supposed to get gale force winds so if I am late posting a blog report it might just be that the power is off. Flooding all down the east coast. the result of an ex-tropical cyclone that is still hugging the coastline means many coastal towns in Queensland are flooded and some deaths and people missing. It is now moving slowly down the coast towards us and there should be, by midnight, gusts of up to 140 miles an hour, doesn't that sound like fun? I can't do much here, just pr
So far, for the past four months since Ray died I have felt like Jelly Woman. The strong woman I was seemed to have dissolved with all the tears I cried and it seemed as if I would never be the same again. I have cried part of every day since the 19th September. I just couldn't focus, could not find that peaceful centre that is such a part of me. I have boasted on here that I am like a bubble in a glass of champagne and nothing keeps me down, well I haven't felt like that for four months.
I don't know whether you believe in global warming but I certainly did on Friday when the day was from early morning one of overpowering heat and there was no way to get cool. I just stayed still most of the afternoon and tried to survive. So many people put their air con on that we finished up with blackouts all over the area and we didn't have power here for two hours. Poor Trevor got caught up in that, he was in the operating theatre about 3pm having an operation on his nose and throat when
I think I am making some kind of progress but the basic loneliness of widowhood gets to me. It is okay when you are on your way out to somewhere but the coming home means coming home to emptiness, with no-one to share your experiences with. Trev and Edie have been moving house for the past week or so and so haven't seen them, Steve I don't hear from much and Shirley and co have enough worries. Sometimes I feel like a left behind Teddy Bear, once much loved but sitting on the shelf for now.
The weather is fine and sunny, the beaches are crowded with holiday makers and family parties and heaps of kids as it is school holidays. But further inland our brave fire fighters, 70% of them volunteers, are fighting to save houses and property from bush fires in western New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. It was a scorcher today up to 110 degrees here on the coast, unheard of by most people and scary with those hot winds and tinder dry bush all around us. And further inland it was even h
It is hot. So HELLO 2013, so glad you came at last! What a blast! Such a contrast to Christmas Day when I wanted it to be hot. So some suitable beach weather for me at last.
I offered to have three of my grandchildren over New Year's Eve for my daughter in law who works on Police Assistance Line (like an Emergency Line). For me to have them benefitted her as she didn't have to pay for a Babysitter and me because I had some company. It is a grand way to wake up on New Year's Day with the
Who got my sunny Christmas Day with our family dinner planned for 5pm outside? Christmas Day I woke up and it was raining. I got wet going into church and then again coming back out. I had gone to the earlier church service so didn't get to spend time with my church friends. Oh well, small price to pay for having fun with my three grandchildren eh? As I drove over to their place, three suburbs away, it was raining and occassionally it poured down. The day was becoming warm and humid and I di
Last year I learned a lot about being alone. With Ray in the Nursing Home I was alone in the house here but Trev and Edie were close by. Then they moved a couple of suburbs over and I went okay through the day but the nights were bad. In the end I managed to sleep despite the creaks and groans of the house and all the noises that I had never heard before. Every person who lives alone knows those noises. The anxiety attacks lessened and I thought I was doing okay.
This year has been a bus
I've had a bad week this week. Partly due to the huge changes to the block of land next door. The house was demolished over a month ago, now they are reshaping the land. Starting at 7am four mornings in a row, the digger roared into life and the resulting constant noise and dust really upset me. The digger dragged down what was left of my fence and took half of the garden with it. Too late afterwards for the machine operator to say: "oh sorry" and ot course no intention of doing anything about i
At this time of the year I always feel a joy mixed with sadness. This year for me Christmas comes at the end of what has been a year of great pain and suffering as I watched my two loved ones deteriorate. I was just starting to cope with Ray dying on September 19th and having hardly come to terms with that to also having my dear Mum die only two months and a day later was very hard. I could be morbid and maybe wished I could have erased 2012 from the calendar. But that would be to erase my dar
While I was in a daze for most of the last two months because of Ray's death I won't mourn for Mum in the same way. My mother was scornful of the sorrowful, she would say: "Look at them sitting there with long faces." so I will not mourn her. I will try to be as philosophical as those people who tell me "she was old" ( I know that), " she is in a better place" (I know that too) and she wouldn't want me to "sit around with a long face" (true). So I am trying to rejoin life again.
I have j
I can't believe I had three phone calls today telling me why friends were not at Mum's funeral yesterday. Forget it friends, you were not there. But Mum was 94, had been out of circulation for twelve years and so I was not surprised that only fifty people came. Really only four of her friends, my church friends and mine and my sister's families were there. So today why do I need to know who was not there, well I know that already, and why? Just send a card folks, that is all you need to do.
So much has happened since my last blog. Looking at it now it seems as if all that happened months ago but it is only a week ago.
My Mum died on Tuesday morning 5.20 am. She is finally at peace. I am glad and sad at the same time. I was with her all last Sunday afternoon and most of Monday. At 6pm on Monday one of the nurses told me to go home and get some rest. You can imagine how that didn't happen! As if I could sleep with her so close to death. At 5.30am Tuesday morning the phone ra
This morning I set out as usual to see Mum. When I got to the Nursing Home the door to her room was shut so instead of leaning against the wall for 20 minutes I went into the hostel part to see an old friend. I visit her about twice a month and she accepts that, every visitor she gets is very welcome she tells me. She was a member of my old church so I told her I was meeting a few ladies for lunch today, she always says "maybe I will come with you next time" but she never does.
When I got
I am still feeling very vulnerable. On Sunday I had a meltdown in church when one of the hymns referred to "going down to the grave". Without even thinking suddenly I found there were tears streaming down my face and I was in meltdown. One of the older ladies stepped up and gave me a hug and then suggested I go wash my hands and face and maybe have a drink of water. Several ladies came up at the morning tea and said after xxx number of years after their husbands passed away they still did th
In the face of such adversity as Sandy brought to a lot of Americans my problems are small. I just came home from my Womens Weekend and have been sitting here in tears. I have to say "goodbye" to women I love so much. I will go on with the WAGS group until Christmas, enjoy the Christmas party with them and then decide when it is time to fade away.
It is like that feeling you had as a child when you went to your favourite holiday spot and on the last day, after packing up and piling into th
I am recently widowed and mentally I am still a mess. I plod on, day by day, doing what housework and yardwork has to be done, shopping, visiting Mum, keeping a smile on my face. People are kind and rush up to me in shopping centres to tell me how they only just heard Ray has passed away, how sorry they are etc and I just want to scream. By the time I have thanked them and they move on I find I need to rush to the rest rooms and have a few tears (stress release), wash my face and compose myse
