Sometimes when I see something I still think: "I must tell Ray about that". I watch a TV program we once would have watched together and I turn to him to say something and of course he is not there. I suppose it is partly because I haven't moved, I still live in the house Ray extended three times. We owned this house together for a long time, it is the house we called home with two out of three of our children (Trevor was born in Yass, we moved there in 1974). We bought it or at least paid the desposit on it about six months after we were married. We were away from the house for ten and a half years so we came back at the end of 1984, this time with three kids. I have lived here ever since.

I haven't done much to the house since Ray went off to the Nursing home in 2011. I do need to do quite a lot to get it all ship shape again but it all seems like a lot of effort. When my Shirley and her family move closer and I can get her to come and have a look at the house I will make a list of all that needs to be done and decide what to do first. A lot of the jobs will need a tradesman so then it is a matter of lining it all up and finding the money to pay for it. Quite a lot of it has to be done if I am to ever move and I will need to do that, find a smaller house on one level before I get too old to move.

I can see a future where I do get older, looking around at the widows in the church I can almost trace the path I will be following. Sometimes that is really scary. One thing about doing the visiting in the nursing homes is it gives you a real touch of reality. Over the three years I have been back to doing this I have seen some of the people I am fond of fading fast. It is not Dementia or Alzheimers, just the ageing process which happens to us all, some faster than others of course. If you come from a family who live into their nineties then seventy is not old but I am less than two years off that "O" Birthday now.

On the brighter side of life I also work with children in our Messy Church team and of course have grandchildren of my own and neighbourhood children so I do see children around me growing and improving and learning. Working in Messy Church is fun as I am a kid at heart and always have to do the craft projects and mix in with those having the most fun. We have kids with learning problems too and that take some patience to work with them so that they have craft works to take home like the other kids. But among other things working with Ray as a disabled person did give me a lot of patience so I laugh rather than get irritated and so they laugh too and we are all happy with the end result.

I am going down to my daughter's to see my 16 year old grandson get an award next week. This will be my last trip down to see the folk at her Salvation Army Corps down there as Shirley and family finish there a week before they are moving. It will be like saying goodbye to old friends as she has been there six years and I have made a lot of visits in that time. Some of them came to Ray's funeral, over four hours drive for them and I was so blessed by their kindness in doing so. There are some folk who have taken "Captain's mother" to their hearts and I will miss seeing them.

And so I look to the New Year to bring some more changes into my life. I know that is happening in the church too as the new minister wants to take on new projects. I did the sermon in church on Sunday, wasn't my day but the assistant has some health issues and I volunteered to help out. I always find it a bit scary as you are putting ideas before people for them to accept, reject or deny. I told a Broken Hill story and some folk got the connection and smiled so that part was a success. Every thing in our life connects in some ways both to the past and to the future.

Of course I can try to forget Ray but really it is impossible to do so, both the good times and the bad times will be recalled from time to time, memories I would rather not remember and those I find hard to recall alike. There are lessons to be learned all through life. I am getting to the age when some things I would rather forget. I am able now to recall the times when Ray and I were happy, it has taken me three years to get there but at last I can connect the happy smiling Ray in photos from the 60s, 70s and 80s with the happier stories and the later ones of him looking so drawn and ill are not the memories I want to carry.

I am also now associating with people who have never met Ray, or if they did meet him it was in the last few years of his life. They might know me from four or five years ago but really do not remember Ray at all. In a way that is an advantage as they know me as I am now, free to do so much more without the many tasks a caregiver has do and never enough time to do it all in. But in other ways it is strange as I start to tell a Ray story and they just look blank as they cannot connect it to the Ray as I knew him years ago. I know others will forget him with time but I will never forget him all the time my brain is clear and functioning.

And so I madly rush towards Christmas, so many things to do, people to see, others to reconnect with. Someone told me today she had sent out all her Christmas cards. I do not even know who I will send them to. I have folk on email and Facebook and I will send them greetings electronically. I have some people I can write a few lines in a card and that will do, while others will need a much longer update. It all seems like a bit of an effort but I know I will get there in the end. And of course some people will have forgotten us all together because when Ray died for them "Sue and Ray" died. They may have forgotten me but hopefully I will remember them and the good times we shared.