Tag: marriage difficulties

Family Gatherings

Island Traveler says: “Being with family and friends always brings sunshine and joy. I miss spending Sundays with my sisters and parents, tons of nephews and nieces. ”

 

In some communities or cultures families meet regularly once a week or so. In Australia large Italian or Greek families are known for having these weekly family gatherings. They are mostly first or second generation ‘New Australians’ as far as I know. For following generations it may already be a bit different.

 

As far as I can see families overall do keep some contact if this is at all possible and usually enjoy these family gatherings. However modern life and living not in the same area  may interfere, so that families cannot see each other as often as they would like.

If families stay close together living in the same area, this is usually a cultural thing. Some people who grew up in a close knit community do very much enjoy to be part of it. If circumstances necessitate to leave this close knit community they may experience a sense of loss. Other people who grew up not belonging to a certain community, later on maybe do not strive so much to belong to one.

I think my mother never wanted to belong to an extended family. My father was the opposite. To him keeping close contact with all his siblings was always important. As far as I can remember my mother resented this. She did not want to be involved with the extended family. It shows that people have different priorities. These different priorities can lead to marital frictions. What do you think?

 

 

 

My Friend Eva

My Friend Eva

I did get to know her when I was forty and Eva was sixty-three. She died thirty years later. I was able to keep in touch with her right to the end. When Eva was nearly eighty, she moved to a hostel. Before that she had lived at home with her estranged husband and had frequent bouts of depression. She had wanted to separate from her husband for a long time. Her husband didn’t want to let her go. He also prevented her from getting an age pension. For years and years she was stranded not being able to buy anything for herself.

Finally, through the intervention of a caring social worker, she was able to get her age pension. Another caring person, namely a Catholic sister, who lived in the neighborhood, saw to it that she could move into the hostel. She was nearly eighty at the time.

For many years I visited Eva in her home. Whenever I visited we played several games of Scrabble. Even when Eva was in a depressive state, she always loved to play Scrabble! Once she had some pension money, she developed an interest in shopping again. When I took her out for a bit of shopping, she also liked to have a cup of coffee with me in a shopping center. Sometimes I took her to my place for some games of Scrabble and to have lunch with me and Peter.

After having moved to the hostel, Eva liked to be taken for visits to a hairdresser. She also started choosing with great care what to wear for the day. It was really important to her to look good! Sometimes I took her with me to visit some friends of mine. They were all fond of Eva. I was her confidante. I think I was probably the only person she liked to open up to. I saw her only about once a week or once a fortnight. She always liked to spend a few minutes to let me know what had been going on with her since I last saw her. She also never forgot to inquire about me and my family.

The hostel provided for outings in their community bus. In the beginning Eva had been keen on going to all these outings. However, as she got older she lost interest in it. There came a time when she just didn’t want to go out anymore. Even with me she wanted to go out less and less. She still liked playing Scrabble though whenever I visited her. I think it was when Eva was about ninety when she started losing interest in playing Scrabble. However right to the end she was always looking forward to my visits.

Eva died in 2005. I was seventy at the time. In 2007 I wrote an imaaginary story about my being in a hostel as an eighty-two year old. In five years from now I will be eighty-two! Hopefully my husband is still going to be alive by then and I won’t have the need for a place in a hostel. But what if? I plan on publishing this imaginary story that I wrote five years ago. I also have some photos of Eva. Maybe a couple of these I can soon publish as well.