This is not my "all about my holiday" blog. This is a continuation of some thoughts I had when I was in chat with a couple of other caregivers. We were talking about family support, or lack of it, a popular topic with all of us.

So I wondered...what if.....

What if it was me instead of Ray, laying there in that hospital bed in Bendigo in 1999? What as a woman in her early fifties would my fate have been? Would a sister who is "always busy" have volunteered to look after me? Would my family have rallied around and looked after me? My Dad with bone cancer, a mum in the early stages of Alzheimers, barely coping themselves surely would not have been able to do much. So I guess my daughter and sons would have had to take up some caring role. Or place me in a facility.

What if my sister had volunteered to look after Mum and Dad so they had been able to stay in their own home longer? Would Dad had died old and tired and feeling like a burden because he knew that I had enough to do just looking after Ray without looking after him and mum too? I always feel he gave up towards the end knowing that he was beyond being that strong, loving man he had once been.

I had done my best supporting them for a couple of years at home and then having them live with me. But with Ray doing therapy etc it WAS too much looking after the three of them. But I still managed to keep Mum with me for a further two years. And I continue to look after her financial affairs, buy her essentials, to be her Power of Attorney etc and visit her twice a week in her nursing home now as in her Lodge for the past eight years.

What if all those people we thought of as friends had rallied round and instead of vowing undying love had done something practical, like bring in a meal, or mow my lawn or taken Ray for a drive so I could just sleep and sleep and sleep?

We have had some wonderful friends who have done some loving acts for us, taken us to dinner, joined in activities to enable us to go on doing what we were able to do. Like the Lions Club men and women, the Disabled Bowlers team who helped Ray learn lawn bowls and the great people from Camp Breakaway a lot of whom are volunteers, who give me that three day break three times a year. Not forgetting our friends from another organisation who put the shower room in that has made showering Ray so much easier for me.

There are others who have dropped by, given us a cake or flowers or enthusiastic hugs on meeting. They, the people who still support us in our daily lives, are the true heroes who help me as a caregiver to keep on going. And some do go on loving us, Ray for his quiet acceptance of all that he goes through and me for my joy in life and quirky sense of humour. And then there are those of you here who support us and pray for us and love us even though we may never meet face to face.

Unfortunately Ray's family turned their back on him and of his two sisters, one visits once a year and one never. His local brother has a really good job, nice house etc but is too busy to catch up with Ray more than twice a year and only by phone. His other brother was invalided many years ago so I try to visit them every second year or so in Queensland, about fifteen hours drive from here.

My sister did sit with Ray for two hours or so once a fortnight for a while and I was grateful for that at a time when I was getting too little help. And she has had us stay there so she has done a lot to help in her own way. And another friend sat with Ray while I continued to do Scripture in schools for a time. And our son Trevor who has been so supportive for the past three years. And our other son too, busy with his own little family but thinking of us still.

Hard not to feel sorry for ourselves sometimes and do the "what if's" once again. But it is a sad place and one we should not visit often. Life is for living and we all need to live it to the best of our ability, whatever our handicaps and disabilities may be.