I have had a lot of advice since becoming a widow. A lot of it is good and based on common sense and so I consider it. Good friends who know me well like to see me out and about, the sad thing is that they don't invite me to their homes or out to dinner with one exception. In the main the widow is still looked on as a potential trouble maker in a couple's marriage. But I attend enough groups so that I have social contact so that is not a major problem. And a couple of old friends who have come back into my life do take me out to dinner occasionally so that helps too.

Just recently a friend from church told me I had to say: "NO" when I knew that what was being asked of me would turn out to be a burden and add to my sense of tiredness and frustration. So I began saying "NO". The strange thing is that the very people who had told me to slow down are the ones who find it hard to accept the "NO" answer. But...they say... surely that does not apply to us...we need your help..we need your expertise...we need you to do... (this and that). "NO" I say and they express their disappointment. Too bad, I have the right to choose what I will do and not do now.

Spring makes me think of camping, picnics, swimming and in a certain part of my life, fishing. I need to plan some outdoors time. I need to set up my picnic set so it is light and easy to carry and holds enough for me to have morning tea and lunch out. I'm not sure about the camping, too dangerous I would think for me to be out alone at night but maybe fishing again. I don't have any good gear now so that would be an expense and do I want to do that alone? Swimming and picnicing seem to be the things that I can do alone and do without too much planning so they are probably doable.

I still do not have anyone special in my life. It has been three years since Ray died but my friendships with men have not come to anything more serious. I am sad about that as I would like to have a new partner at some stage. Maybe I am too much of a mother figure to them? Who knows? Anyway I know a new relationship would complicate my life so maybe things are better the way they are. Just a handful of women friends I can have coffee or lunch with and no complications. A new relationship would alter life as I know it so maybe I am not ready for that yet?

The caregiving years are tough ones and I did think I would be glad when they ended. I did not foresee the loneliness and the frustration of being on my own. I think I imagined that I would have a lot of family time and the friends I had lost would all come back and joyfully welcome me back into their group again. Well, none of that happened. In the intervening years people had moved, or simply moved on. Some of them had made new friends, taken new jobs, there are all kinds of reasons for the failure of our friendships. Some of course continued with me, maybe uncomfortable about Ray's illness, particularly the dementia but they kept in touch with an occasional phone call, Christmas cards etc. The church folk, my Lions Club and the people in the Apex40 Club have been great at keeping in touch too.

The relationship with my kids and grandkids has changed with the two sons separated from their former wives, the elder Steve has just about finished the divorce now and has a new partner. He has custody of his three children and they all live a long way away from me. Trev is still battling with custody issues to get more access to his beloved daughter Alice. No-one wants that kind of thing happening in their family but it happens in many families and it is hard to take in, hard to take. I do want stability in my relationships, I want the people around me who knew and loved Ray. I want to share their memories and tell them mine. I need my family.

So although I am making plans they are plans for me on my own. And I still miss Ray, I miss him every day, I miss him in a thousand ways. I sometimes cry at the unfairness of it all. I know we said "till death" but that should have come between 80 and 90 not a aged 70. We should have had those "golden years", maybe not as actively as we had planned but who is Sue if she is not part of the couple Sue'n'Ray? That I am still finding out.