In life we get on fine if we have good foundations. Home and family, church and community have always been my four corner posts.

Although as a teenager I was not a church attender, godward thinking and spirituality has always been a part of my nature. I breathe therefore I pray. It is hard for me not to put "God bless.." at the end of my postings as that is what I put at the end of my letters and emails usually. Whether the person I am sending them to is a believer or not, is not my first concern. I am a Christian therefore the thoughts I send are those of blessing, of bringing only good to those I love and all I come into contact with.

Family is important too. My Mum, my sister, my husband and children, my cousins, Uncles and Aunts etc to the third and fourth generation whether known or unknown are part of a solid phalanx that keeps me centred on who I am and where I come from. This is a platform for launching all types of operations, family history and genealogy being one for the hobbies I have taken up in recent years.

Community is where I find myself in my neighbourhood, the organizations I belong to and the groups I join such as this board. Community changes more than family. It changed a good deal after Ray's strokes and our retirement but it seems to keep some elements constant. We always belong to some organization that cares for the community. I have belonged to Lifeline, have been a voluntary hospital chaplain, held home Bible studies, taught Religious Education in schools, had executive jobs in a variety of different social and service organizations. I don't do it for thanks or praise or monetary reimbursement or even for a certificate to hang on the wall. I do it because helping others and participating in community organizations fulfils me in some ways.

Home has varied. After being an English child born of English parents, we emigrated to Australia and I grew up being a "little pommie b*", then married an Australian, raising three Australian children and become a naturalized Australian myself, Australia is "home". Where we have lived over the years has varied a lot so home is mostly where I live now, the house we bought when we got married, moved away from and back to.

So why do I feel my heart crying right now? Change. The church I go to is to be sold up, the sign goes up this week. It is the church in which I was married, had our oldest child baptized in, she also married there. I have gone to it for the last 22 years and fully participate in the worship. It is being sold for a few reasons, falling congregation numbers, rising upkeep, the need to have working capital to build a new church in a better location, our main parish church is eventually to be sold too. There is no thought we will go there, we will be changing parishes.

At the same time there are changes in Ray. For the first time this morning I noticed he was not following the service, he was just sitting, looking puzzled and a little vacant. He does seem to be doing more of that lately. Having had my Mum live with me as she progressed into Alzheimers I know that the vascular dementia will progress in somewhat the same way and he will gradually lose his personality and I will lose the man I married, by degrees and inches. And the relationships we have as a couple will fade and die. At some stage that may mean I leave our home here too. To get another I can more easily care for him in or to realize the capital in this one.

And in losing my husband and my home, our community and the relationships we have with friends and neighbours will also fade and die.

There will be new beginnings too. I know that life will change and become not necessarily worse but different.

It is all too much sometimes and something deep within me screams that eternal "NO" that echoes through our minds at the edge of a nightmare. Just sometimes I can sense that my eyes are dry but my heart is crying.