It has been a busy day in a busy week for me. I went to three different types of support group today. In the morning I went to a meeting of carers, in the afternoon Ray and I went to a funeral and tonight Ray and I went to a dinner meeting we have been going to on and off, once a month, for about 22 years.

The support group I went to this morning was rather odd. At first there were only five people there plus two social workers. Then two more people came half way through the meeting. I had been lead to believe the meeting was for carers of stroke survivors, but it turned out three of us were in that catergory, two women had husbands with Parkinsons, one a daughter with a serious TBI and the last a son who had a disease which affected the top of his spine and may affect the cerebellum. What we had in common was that we all looked after someone and were all women.

I asked one of the social workers how many people had been invited to attend and she said they had sent out 120 letters! If 120 letters were sent out and only seven people were able to attend it does tell you something about caregivers, they are mostly too busy to attend meetings! And this was with some respite being provided for the person cared for. I had asked Trevor to look after Ray as I was not sure how long the meeting would go for.

The program was less than promising, a lady from Carelinks, a government funded group which should co-ordinate care needs took us through some of the services they may or may not provide according to how many of them are currently being funded. I had a couple of things to say about my struggles with getting my respite needs met and she agreed mine is probably not an uncommon case. The rest of the group looked very glum but said nothing. Then we went on to have lunch together at our own expense and at a small but very noisy restaurant so in the end we gave up on conversation and ate our lunches in silence. Not a very promising beginning.

At the funeral this afternoon I read the eulogy on behalf of the family. I have done this a few times as you just need good diction, a steady voice and the ability to read. This one was typed so I had no trouble with it. You learn a lot when you have even the briefest look at someone else's life, this couple, known to us for 20 plus years I knew had one son, I didn't know they had also lost two children, a four year old daughter who drowned and a son in his teens killed in a car accident.

Ray and I thought we went to support them but in the end gained as much as we gave. Our son supervised the funeral on behalf of the firm of funeral directors he works for so was very conscientious in attendance to the family concerned. We did go on to the funeral tea and had a lovely afternoon with a lot of our friends from our old church. It was with a shock after a couple of hours I realised we only had an hour to go home, redress and go out to dinner.

The dinner tonight was a monthly dinner. The reason I call it a support dinner is because every dinner, during the after dinner interval at least a couple of people come and sit with me and discuss their family woes. This stems from the time when I did hospital chaplaincy and they encountered me in that role. So each month I do some counselling as people discuss their old parents care needs, confess in whispers their childrens drug problems, or ask for prayers for family and friends in need. I don't mind doing this. It is part of what I am as a member of that group, most groups need a chaplain.

I always think of what a wise man once told me:"The Dead Sea is dead because it receives and never gives out." As caregivers we do need a lot of support, but we also need to pass that support on to others, not only in our own family group, but here and in other situations we find ourself in. You might not think of yourself as wise but as the song "I am Woman" says: "Yes, I am wise, but it's wisdom born of pain." As survivors and caregivers alike we have a lot of that kind of wisdom.