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 hoping so anyway.

He lives in Adelaide now, a two hour flight away. I saw him and his children and his partner last Friday night, although I had seen the children during the last school holidays I had not seen my son for a while. I was glad to have the opportunity to go to his home and then out to dinner with them all. It was good to just be Granma with her son and grandchildren. It has not been a good relationship since Ray died, I think we all thought: "Now things will go back to normal" but normal is not a place it is a state of mind and all of us have moved on from there. Ray's absence is so obvious at family gatherings and there is nothing we can do but get used to that fact.

I actually went down to Adelaide to the commissioning of our past minister in his new church. It was an interesting place he was commissioned in. There are three churches on the one block of land. There is a small stone church which would hold about thirty people, that is the original church. There is a marvelous new church, built because the second, newer one was burned down by an angry young man who thought he had been insulted by one of the wardens who was trying to regulate his behavior. So angry he felt that he came back with a flaming torch and burnt the church down. Imagine the distress among the community, not so many are churchgoers but still many regard a particular church as "their church" and the act of burning down a church reverberated around a large portion of the community for that reason.

The community, up in arms about the event, decided to rebuild the church and what you see now is the less than completed renovated church in progress. It has taken many years to build but it is now roofed over and the walls completed but not as yet used full time. It is used as a bridal chapel and for smaller prayer meetings. I was glad to see they have added a passageway between the renovated church and the new one so it is still part of the main complex, not just a sad addition - no longer used as the main church but a useful addition that is still used for small events but not for the main functions.

I am telling you this because that is where I think I am now. A very traumatic event happened in my life, the death of my husband followed two months later by the death of my mother. Like the roof of the church I collapsed. I am now rebuilding. I still feel as if there is much work needed to get me to where I want to be, a new updated Sue, useful, welcome, part of the mainstream of life. You and my friends and family in real time are the community that is helping with the rebuilding.

I am still useful, I come on here and post and comment, I still do my stint as a chat host, I still do the weekly Blog reports. I still take an interest in all the caregivers in particular have going on in their lives. I still attend Lions Club meetings and help out in any way I can in the community. I still do hospital, nursing home and home visits on behalf of the church. There are a lot of useful years in me still. But in no way do I want to be the Main Event. Too old and too sensible for that. And I no longer have that driving ambition I once had.

Can we stop the collapse from happening? I think not. Keeping yourself strong does help, having "ME time" and "time out" does help, keeping fit and healthy does help. But long term caregiving is a big job and takes a lot out of the person doing it and at some stage a collapse might happen. My advice is wait out the grief, take positive steps to reemerge from your cocoon and if you feel stuck in the grieving call on friends and family for help. Always remember you are stronger because of what you have been through and somehow you will survive.

That is my thought for today. I hope that helps.

*photo shared from the Facebook Page of (Rev) Stephen Bloor who holds the copyright..