The music stops, the couples pick up their bags, the singles wait for their transport, the party is over for another year. The highlight of my Christmas party season is the WAGS (Working Age Group for Stroke) Christmas party. The people who belong to that group have been the foundation of my life for 8 years, six with Ray alive and the two since. I know many of them have a heavier load than even I had but they still have time to think of others, to reach out, to share on Facebook or in an email.
Do you ever wonder what is happening to your thoughts at this time of the year? I am sure we all suffer from some sort of emotional confusion as we look at the world through the filter of our own problems. So far I do not have a single decoration up, no tree, no tinsel, nothing to show that Christmas is coming. I haven't written in any cards or posted any Christmas letters. It feels as if I am just not emotionally ready. I thought it would improve this year, I've passed the two year anniversary
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
Life is busy. It is mostly good too but a couple of events this week have cast a shadow over the joy of the season, one is that an old and trusted friend has stage 4 cancer and I can't get to see her right now and the other is that my younger son's wife has walked out and is preventing him from seeing the children. I am so far away from both of them and I want to be with them, in two different directions and I have so many obligations here that my time is so committed and I just can't get away f
Hello, my name is Sue, I am a widow of a stroke survivor, my late husband Ray, a volunteer here at Strokenet and yes, it is official, I am a Dancing Diva. I got this award for dancing on Friday and Saturday nights at the WAGS Women's Weekend.
I have not always been a Dancing Diva although dancing was a big part of the courtship between Ray and I. I danced most Friday nights and some Saturday nights from the age of sixteen until we married when I was twenty one. I had friends, family members
Today was the day in my church when we remember those we love who have recently died. I deliberately didn't put Mum's and Ray's names down as I didn't want to hear their names read out but some dear sweet friend did so I got through the service and then had a mini meltdown. Now I hate that it happened. It is two years for Ray, almost two years for Mum and it still seems like yesterday sometimes. I keep thinking I am getting over it, I am almost over it, surely I am over it now but it seems it do
I have been renovating my life. I have been building new bridges between me and some of the people that were sidelined by Ray's long illness and his subsequent death. It is not an easy process. A lot of people thought I should have paid him less attention and gone on with my life. One of those people is my older son. I am sure the rocky relationship we have now is partly due to that belief. However even that can be patched and maybe one day be better because of what we have both learned. I am ho
http://www.godvine.com/This-New-Song-From-Glen-Campbell-Had-Me-Sobbing-THIS-Is-The-Reality-fb-gv--6170.html
I knew him from his youth to old age, he became old too young,he went too soon. I know we all go through so many changes. But how to reconcile it all. Missing you Ray.
Sue.
I only have one of Ray's family that I am still in touch with, his older brother's wife. I rang her on Sunday night in answer to sundry messages left on my answer phone and sadly learned that one of Ray's brother-in-laws had died. I was away from Thursday to Sunday so I missed the phone calls and missed the funeral which was yesterday. I may not have gone anyway but I did send a card to Ray's sister. His two sisters were my bridesmaids and as I have a large photo of my wedding group on the wall
I got up today and the world was silent, for the last three nights I had my three grandchildren here so I got up and two voices said: "Hello Granma". My granddaughter was still in "her room". She always says: "Will I still be able to have my room?" She has had it since she was a small girl and it is hers till I leave here I guess. She is a teenager now, withdrawn, playing her own music, not joining in the activities but on Saturday night we watched "The Princess Bride" one of her favourite movie
Being a widow is different from being a wife, loneliness is a factor, not having someone to consult, doing all the things you have to do alone, planning for one, eating alone...you get the picture. But there is also a prejudice out there about widows. Someone recently called me a "merry widow"...hmmm, not sure about that. I do seem to be happier these days and probably just as well, it stops my friends asking the "are you over it yet" question all the time. Yes, I am over the initial shock, I do
50 years on, 50 years on, what can we show for our 50 years gone? I went to my 50 years anniversary of my high school graduation in 1964. Thank you to the chat girls who encouraged me to go. As usual I was disappointed in who was not there but glad to see who was. Met up with two out of five of my debating team buddies. Guy, now a retired accountant can still talk under water with a mouthful of marbles and I could hear laughter wherever he was. Margaret is still working in an education field a
It is two years today since Ray died. Because I knew I was going to sit here and mope and cry I went off to the local shopping centre. I did the girlie shopping, had a chat to about 8 people from the church, four from Lions and a couple from my Stroke recovery group. Then in came the friend I often have coffee with ( she looks after her stroke affected son) and she said:"Sit!" so I sat and she got coffee and a muffin to share and stayed with me for an hour. This was very reinforcing of our frien
I got through the two big sad times Father's Day and what would have been Ray's 72nd birthday. These anniversaries even though I am nearly two years past his death still revive a lot of sad memories as you who have lost loved ones will realise. It is sad to think of the years going by without Ray in my life, after 44 years of marriage and with so many expectations that we would spend a lifetime together.
Life goes on. We had so many wet days I thought I might get a message to start collectin
I wish I could say keeping busy helps, sometimes it does but sometimes it fails. Today was Fathers Day. There is no father now and since the kids are all away not even someone else's father to celebrate with. I went to church, I went to lunch, I came home and felt so sad. I had a nap, I woke up, I made my dinner, I felt so sad. I feel bad in so many ways, yes, it is a pity party, no I do not need any help, I just want to have someone back in my life, one of my family to move back here to be clos
Today I heard three sermons, one at the Anglican Church, one at the Salvation Army and one at the closing ceremony of a women's enrichment weekend. I have just got back home so I am feeling pretty tired. No, I did not participate myself in the weekend but I was a sponsor so I took my candidate (new attendee) up on Thursday afternoon and brought her back tonight. The weekend was at a Retreat Centre but as it is two hours drive from here I decided to stop over in Cessnock on Saturday night so b
The birds are going mad today, lots of puddles to bathe in, green grass, plenty of worms near the surface so lots of birds out and about. Plenty of nest building too as I have seen the smaller birds flying around with dry grass or twigs in their beaks, and several of them are squabbling over a favourite tree for that, my paper bark tea tree out on the front footpath.We were given the weather forecast today of another wet day and low temp but Mother Nature mustn't have been listening as it is sim
I have been very busy today, I am tired but that wound up kind of tired you get when too many things have happened. I went to my friend's son's funeral today, he was only 47 and died of cancer, leaving a wife and three small children,so sad. I had known him since he was two, seen him grow up, his mother and I became firm friends. He and his brother and two sisters often visited and he played with my kids, particularly the boys. Even when we lived away for ten years we and his family kept in t
It has been a strange week, cold and windy but no rain, very cold nights for here. I have been busy with meetings, there seem to be so many church meetings as our minister leaves at the end of September and he is trying to tie up loose ends. I think I am one of them as he seems to want me to do this, that and the other at the moment. Even asked me if I had done my homework before one of the meetings. Homework? Me? I am 67, nor 6 or 7. Please treat me like an adult not a child. I don't think
I had a week with one of the nasty winter viruses around this year - this one had a headache that lasted four days with fever and a really bad throat plus a cough. Everything but the cough seems to have gone but coughing keeps me waking up and waking up keeps me thinking. Not a good thing at 3am as we all know. And it is too cold to get up and wander around the house as I can in summer so I stay in bed under the covers and hope I will get back to sleep.
I have got back to the stage of wonde
Where is the person who looks after me when I am sick? After all those years as a caregiver that would seem obvious...it's me! Sad but true. I had the family visit end on Thursday, went to a funeral last Friday and woke in the middle of the night with a huge headache and burning up with fever. Plenty of OTC medications about the place so I got dosed up with those that would lower the temp, fix the headache and...nope did not make me go back to sleep. Saturday, so sick, stay down, make up a
The family have gone home,it is always sad to farewell them but also time to rejoice in what we experienced together and what we are to each other. I have a lot to be thankful for and often fail miserably. I have too much time to think and it is easy to get miserable and mopey and let the slights and disappointments in life get out of perspective. Three days with my Salvationist family whether I am at their place or they are here is always good for me.
This time there was the bonus of hav
"Now is the winter of our discontent" to quote Shakespeare. Or just plain old winter, wind howling, clouds flowing, trees shedding leaves and branches (gum trees do that every time there is a wind) noises like banging and shushing and grating, I think caused by the dead fronds hanging down on the palm trees next door. Not easy to sleep while all of that is going on so I have had a couple of bad nights. So has the baby next door who is teething I suppose so she and I have been waking at all ho
Strange week last week, another funeral, a few days of trying to get the car ready to re-register, a couple of lunches out with friends, a few more things added to my to do list as I need some time for cleaning out drawers. It was a good week on the whole. My program seems to be lightening up. Maybe I am just ignoring what has to be done, always a possibility.
The Assistant Bishop came down from Newcastle this morning and I am now officially a Lay Minister in charge of Mutual Care. So the
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
