In the past I stuck mainly to journal or diary writing, or I tried to come to grips with some of my childhood memories. Only occasionally did I resort to fiction writing in the form of a short story. As far as my reading tastes are concerned I must say, in my younger days I always preferred reading novels: Only occasionally would I read a short story.
These days the time I spend  reading novels seems to be getting less and less, even though I still like novels a lot. Today for instance I spent half an hour reading a short story. It turned out I did very much love this story. It was a story I had been reading many years ago and I could still remember the subject of this story since this is a subject that interests me very much: What happens to a mother when she is suddenly widowed?
Barbara, one of my neighbours, is the author of this story titled “For better or worse”. Many years ago Barbara won a local award for this story. As I said I could still remember having read this story. I asked Barbara the other day, whether she is still writing. I told her how I remembered this story of hers. The mother in the story moves in with the daughter´s family after her husband died. She lives with the daughter, son-in-law and their two children for several months. In the end she decides, it is better to move on. Living together all the time is just not the right thing and brings about serious tensions in the family.
In the story we learn that the daughter is not at all like the mother. The daughter is more easy going whereas the mother as a very tidy person. This reminds me how all my children are very different from me. I am definitely not a very tidy person. None of my daughters nor my son are extraordinarily tidy either, but they are easy going in lots of different ways, not the way I am, not at all. Living with any one of them I can imagine might lead to frustrations all around. I just cannot imagine to live with any of them indefinitely. Maybe if there was a granny flat, it could work out?!
Well, I am fortunate, that my husband is still alive. God willing, we may still have quite a few years together. We live in a three bedroom house, called a villa, for it is in a corporate housing complex. There is a master bedroom, a guest bedroom and the third one is a computer room but can also be made into a bedroom. Our living room has an extension sofa for overnight guests. I always love to have family staying overnight at our place. We call ourselves lucky that we can make room like this for overnight guests.
Several women who used to live in our complex, eventually moved away after their husbands died. Â They live now in retirement villages. Another neighbour, who was recently widowed, keeps thinking that she might want to move too. She is a very tidy person. She feels, the effort to keep her place and surroundings in the condition that she is used to, might become too much for her with advancing age.
Some years ago I wrote a fictional short story about a hostel for the aged. I used to have a friend in a hostel like this. This hostel was a very beautiful place on top of a hill with terrific views towards the ocean. In the beginning my friend loved her stay there. She was still mobile enough to go on outings with some of the other residents. Over the years she aged a lot and did not feel like going out any more. It turned out the people in that hostel who ended up needing nursing care, could often not be transferred to a nursing home because of bed shortages there. It was sad to see residents, who required constant nursing care, struggle on in the hostel where it became more and more difficult for the staff to look after all these feeble residents. In the hostel was not enough staff for nursing care. A lot of the residents were just sitting around all day, half dazed and not being able to participate in the life that was going on around them!
Originally I thought I would not mind spending my final days in a hostel like this with my own room and private facilities. But a nursing home? Oh, I hope it will not come to this. I hope that I can die before I need a nursing home. On the other hand, a person who is that far gone, maybe does not really mind too much to have to stay in a nursing home.
AuntyUta 
July 22, 2013 at 5:08 am | Why? Is it because we feel our way of life being threatened?
Do we not spend billions to âprotectâ our borders? What if this money or at least part of it could be spent to provide some simple housing for asylum seekers. What if we let these people work to build houses, infrastructure and to produce nourishing food, as well as build schools and do training of teachers for children as well as adults to learn English? Does anyone think these people are not capable of doing a dayâs work? Why let them rot in camps without being able to work? It doesnât make sense to me.
There are many jobs in Australia that are nearly exclusively done by recent migrants from Asia and Africa. They are willingly and gladly doing these jobs for little pay which other Australians are not willing to do anymore!
How much do people pay these so called people smugglers? Why donât we go to Indonesia and tell these people instead of giving this money to people smugglers they can deposit it with an Australian Bank. Then they only have to apply for residence in Australia and in due time the Australian government is going to transport them to this country of their choice at no cost to them? If the application is not successful for some reason (maybe because they cannot provide sufficient papers?) then they can withdraw their saved money at any time. At least the the people smugglers would not get the money and these people would not risk being drowned at sea or their application not being successful after a hazardous journey. When Peter and I applied for migration to Australia from Germany in 1959 we were asked to come for an interview to the Australian embassy in Cologne. We had to bring our two babies along too when we talked to the Australian officer.
Why cannot the same thing be done with prospective migrants in Indonesia?
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July 22, 2013 at 6:32 am | Of course many could be settled here very comfortably. The political parties just use the boat people for political ends, whipping up xenophobia.
Anyway, it seems the liberals have been snookered by the ALP in their own game. I think your idea to advice people to invest the money going to smugglers into an Australian Bank instead an excellent idea. It take an (ex) German to come up with practical workable solutions! đ
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July 22, 2013 at 7:12 amHe, he, Gerard, this remains to be seen if anything like this would meet any governmentâs criteria!
I just read what barrister and human rights advocate Julian Burnside has to say. He says boat arrivals are less than 0,7% of all yearly arrivals. To keep one person in detention for one year costs 200,000 $ in our cities and more then twice this in outback centres or off shore places. (I reckon Papua New Guinea might be a lot cheaper!)
Burnside says after one month for security and health checks asylum seekers should be released into the community allowing them to work or to receive Centrelink benefits, settling them in regional centres who would gladly welcome the influx of people to these reginal towns who struggle to survive.
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July 22, 2013 at 7:22 am | Yes, that would be common sense. But common sense seems to be in short supply. The difficulty seems to be to turn around peoples perception that the boat people numbers are not large, they are miniscule. It is not a real problem for such a country of âboundless plainsâ.
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July 22, 2013 at 6:09 am | Canât believe the white Australia policy is still going on. Amazing. I remember it from years back when my uncle was a ten pound pom and my partner and some of his mates from South Wales went in the late 70s. Then, to be fair, it did change and Redfern became full of Vietnamese.Itâs one of the ironies of life that big countries are invariably underpopulated and small ones overpopulated. A generalisation, but living in the fifth most densely populated territory in the world, one that applies to me. If you look at Europe, Belgium, Netherlands, and to a lesser extent, the UK, are all relatively high up the list. Spain less so, like Australia, it has vast areas of country that have no people.
When you start to look at bigger countries with a high population density, Bangla Desh comes first, followed by India, and then China. Bangla Desh isnât that big, just the biggest that hits six figures in sq kms in the top 20. India makes top 50, and China is 83 in the rankings. The rest of the big countries are way down the list.
Having said all that PNG is pretty low on the list 209, compared with Australia at 233.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density.
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July 22, 2013 at 6:40 am | The original White Australian Policy was abandoned officially in the seventies. The population now is very mixed and from just about all over the world, thatâs why it is so ludicrous to be so worried about boat people in desperation trying to come here. We should be worried about their drowning but this is not the main concern which is a way over the top whipping up of xenophobia, being overrun by hordes of Afghans or Iranians, etc.
We went to those countries waging dubious wars that made millions of refugees. When some in desperation try and come to Australia risking their lives, we make out as if they have evil intentions for Australia
. Terrible.
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July 22, 2013 at 11:21 amI should have added that every year there is an influx of raft people from Africa trying to get to Spain and thence to northern Europe for a better life. Or just anywhere really.What so-called developed countries (ie greedy capitalist ones) should do, is put some reasonable infrastructure in instead of going to war for oil, leaving the place a dogâs breakfast, and consider more environmental moves. In my dreams.
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July 22, 2013 at 6:47 am | Gerard, you are painting a good picture of the history of post-war immigration into Australia and the present sad state of affairs.Even the language they are using explaining the new measurements are offensive, like âthis country has enoughâ. What about PNG? They soon will have enough of the asylum seekers.
The âboat peopleâ will get a culture shock. Perhaps this is intended. You are right, it canât be the number of people that come. There is plenty of land that can be populated.
You say, Australia is a huge country and âsmallâ parts of it are as big as European countries. The problem with Australians is they have no idea how huge Australia is. When they go to school and they see a map of Australia the map is the same size as the map of any other country. Since we have no neighbours here we have no way comparing our country with another.
The numbers in boat arrivals are minuscule. If we are worried about the drowning, as they say, they should go to Indonesia and pick the recognised refugees up and bring them here. I wrote to PM Gillard but got no response.
When we came to Australia they came and picked us up (assisted migrants) and we were economic migrants. We all want a better life, what is wrong with that? Didnât the Angle-Saxon go to Britain for a better life?
Contracting out the asylum seekers is cheaper. To hell with the consequences for them and the people of PNG. The shock of the new measure âmightâ do the trick and it will reduce the boat arrivals.
And you asked, why? Because we stole the country in the first place and we donât want to share it with others. The population has increased despite ourselves. We are racist, but we will not admit it.
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July 22, 2013 at 8:23 am | Yes Berlioz 1935.
Back in those days the Australian Government were advertising overseas to try and entice people to migrate. Now many are coming out of a much greater need. The need to survive and escape terrible wars.
I canât believe some of the dreadful comments in the media. Many boat people have drowned and are still drowning and it is made out as if this is some ploy by them to gain a better outcome or more sympathy.