Today has been the most beautiful day possible. Sometimes there is something in the air, in the smell of it and a light in the sky and on the land which just takes your breath away. Today has been like this. Australia is an amazing place. We had not had rain for some time and I was worried about the cracks in the ground, about my water tanks becoming dangerously low, about the dam being so dry I was concerned that the neighbour's cattle might get stuck in there because it was now steep sided and boggy...and then while I was away last week it poured and poured.
Now it is so green it couldn't be any greener. Everything appears washed clean and the growth is phenomenal. There seems to be more birdsong and life is everywhere in evidence. Every tree seems to be a different green and light reflects off all the leaves, individually.
Its really quite warm about 30degrees Celsius (thats 86 Fahrenheit), but its not humid at all.
I wouldn't be dead for quids on a day like today.
(Don and I at our own craggy Island - see this link if Father Ted is unknown to ye)
http://video.google.com.au/videosearch?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=Father+ted&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=CzH-SuPODseCkAXY9sDwCw&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCgQqwQwAw#
Its family day at the shopping centre. I usually find weekends too hard to go over to the centre as everyone seems to be a couple, with children or family of some sort... there are plenty of people on their own, some by choice no doubt...and after this time I can spot the ones like me. I have become a good "widow spotter" or widower or whatever...these are the people who would not be alone had they the choice. But today I needed to be out of the place so went to the shopping centre...its always bittersweet being places where Don and I, and in the past the girls shared times together - a lot of silliness went on and we always seemed to enjoy ourselves. I think more so with Don and I because we knew the time was precious...
Today I handled it okay...just the odd thought...so that when I came back here to home...as I came down into the yard - it was like a welcome... I guess I feel very safe here...like its a healing place. It was for Don and I before. He would put the long back on the wheelchair and electronically lower it to almost sleeping position and lay outside in the shade of one of the big trees...much of the time he was just out there looking and taking it all in. I always left him alone at t
hese times. We all need our own space, especially those who have such little privacy.(last Christmas at craggy Island 2006)
I learnt so much being with him. One thing which is total honesty with each other as to feelings. I am humbled by how much effort he put into making sure things ran smoothly in the last year of his life and now. Unlike too many husbands he was totally unselfish, but conversely always got his own way...strangely in the last years after 35 years...his way was my way and vice versa.
The lucky couples like us, reach a place where after storms and fights and jostling...the waves settle down and the pair of you sail together. It felt like we were sailing in the last years.
When I come back here everything is always beautiful. Sure its a "kit home" - sure its on a flood plane - but there is a feeling here and certain places have it stronger. Down by the sliprails into the next paddock is one strong place. out under the mulberry trees is another. Where our lovely old doggie thorn is buried is another...but the main place is as I walk down the gravel path alongside the barbed wire fence...just as I get near the straining post...there is like a 360 view and for some reason I feel as if I am much taller and straighter that I really am...I am not religious but its always here that I mentally or vocally ask the angels for any help they can allow - usually about the girls and how they are handling things...sometimes a cry for strength for myself...but mostly that somehow a publisher will pick up the manuscript. I have recently had three rejections but still have thirteen out there...and hopefully with angelic help one of them will pick it up. With publishers its all about money and cook books sell...not medical exposes.
On Monday I am off to My youngest's place to get the last of my varicose veins done - before summer. Yay. I am the only one of mum and dad's five daughters to inherit her dreadful varicose veins...her nose as well. The nose i am happy with...but the veins were becoming dangerously enlarged last summer so that even driving or sitting was impossible as it was all crimped behind one knee...sorry Victorians...but I got into a doctor down there quicker than in my home state...I am paying for it but still would have had an 18mth wait here...and they are butchers here.
So after spending five days with our eldest last week, I get to spend the same again with my youngest at whose place i stay for the initial healing stage.
Sometimes I wish I could get a big pair of scissors and cut right around the horizon where i live and transport it to close to where one of our daughters lives...but then it wouldn't have the magic it has.
I have been brave today...coming home up the stairs I almost trod on a tree snake which was dead...the first time I have touched a freshly dead snake..had to move it into under the trees...they are a pretty snake really.
Its strange to think that all this around the house exists in all its beauty whether I am here or not...and no doubt a thousand years hence and a thousand years ago...different but the same...minus house and fences. The birds all sang. The breezes blew...the rain fell. Sometimes I get a sense of the people before ... the aborigines. Not in a politically correct way -there is no such thing as the noble savage - they were and are people just like all of us...some good some bad and many indifferent...but it must have been a good place to live...many kangaroos around here...snakes for supper...large Ibis, parrots, ducks of all varieties ...bush tucker galore...
Yes its been a beautiful day - time for reflection... which brings tears always... we had such good solid memories and so much fun..but then I cry easily...its just my nature...but just as easily I laugh... so the balance is struck.
And yet in writing this all...sadly I have to remain aware that unwelcome and very rude members of my family think its okay to read in here when they have been told how unwelcome they are... I am loathe to expose myself to them...but still feel like I would like to express things as I did in the past. I heard from one brother in law that the other brother in law (who we all know couldn't give two hoots about any of us - he never has) was worried about my state of mind since Don's death...my God. In this way the gossiping and untruths circulate and I just have to be thankful that two of my four sisters are solid and know truth. The state of their ignorance is shocking. My suggestion to them all is to walk a mile in my shoes before you smugly sit up there all clean and undamaged to judge. One day one partner will be the one left. Lets see how you fare. Our mum and dad would turn over in their graves to imagine the coldness of these people...in their plastic lives. The sad thing really is that when it becomes their turn...there will be no one left to support them - you get what you give. I wish it could be different as I would not really wish this on anyone. No doubt as soon as the sneaks read this the phone lines will be a buzzing as expected...get a life people. Find someone else to persecute please.
Without the support I have had it would have been too hard given the extended brutality of Don's death which was no different to an unsolved killing really in effect. No closure there yet.
I have great support really. I have two of the sanest and most giving and compassionate daughters on the planet. Thank you Don. I have two very compassionate sisters and a very good friend who has stuck to me like
glue. And you lot. What more could I ask for?(Don loved women... loved their company and other things!!) here outside our place
Today in a way I feel Don is with me, or around me...benign smiling and understanding of my many and varied human foibles.
Now outside to see the rest of the day as the sun lowers in the sky my heart feels open and blessed...but then i have always felt blessed. Lucky me.
6 comments:
Oh Therese,it has been an honour and an eye opener as you work through your grief for the time I have known you and this post today sounds so hopeful for the future and so grateful for the past, all in one. Grief is a process, a journey, but you know that, and everyone takes the time that they need to go through it.
I loved your description of the nature around your home and the beauty of it all, we're so lucky to be able to live in rural Australia, let anone our wonderful country. You're sounding so much better, and that is not to lessen your pain and your missing Don, but eventually we do find happiness again.
I know what you mean about seeing families all together when you're alone, been there. Lately I see grandmothers with their grandkids who are obviously a part of their daily lives and I get pangs but what can we do? It's not like the old days when families all lived within cooee of each other. My mum probably thinks the same of us who are scattered all over the country.
Okay rambling here. Hope you find that publisher soon and hope you have many more good days like today!
You look very jane Austen with your hair pinned up like that.
have a cup of tea and some cake - go on. aw go on.
Oh - we both love Bruce Springsteen, have a DVD of him in Ireland that has had a fair thrashing.
Special reading this post. I too feel like we've overcome the storms of our early married days and now are in the sailing mode.
Love the picture of you and Don. You guys seem to have had such a wonderfully fun time together.
It's true, there really is no place like home.
home is a refuge....for a long time I still felt my heart was in California with my children...but my heart is here with Steve and the thought of leaving Idaho without him is a miserable thought. You had/have so much Therese, and that is what keeps you strong...the knowledge that you are/were so loved and cherished.
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