Uta’s Diary, June 2015

Peter took this picture near BELVOIR Theatre on Sunday.

Peter says he took this picture because the lake can be seen a little bit in the background.

I must admit it never occurred to me that it was possible to see the lake from this spot at the OAK FLATS BOWLING CLUB. I am talking of course of LAKE ILLAWARRA. We used to live near the BOWLING CLUB. To go down to the lake took us only a few minutes.

Last Sunday we had mostly sunshine. It was very pleasant to be out in the sunshine near the lake where we went for a walk. Later, in the Bowling Club, where we had lunch, it was beautiful warm. We stayed there with our friends for three and a half hours! It was good to see them, catching up on all the new.

Peter later complained to me that we were talking too much about sicknesses. Klaus and Tilde are about the same age as we are. They are thinking about selling their home to move to a retirement village. That makes me wonder whether Peter and I are going to be able to cope indefinitely in our own home.

Our friends know people who had to move to a nursing home. They pointed out how awful it must be to move from a large, comfortable home to a confined space in a nursing home. However, once you do need constant nursing care, you do not have much of a choice, do you?

When husband and wife, both need to be in a nursing home, it can happen, that they are being separated and have to move to different nursing homes. Even if they end up in the same nursing home, they would probably have separate rooms, each one of them sharing their room with one or more strangers.

We were discussing how fortunate people are who die before they have to go into a nursing home. To live in a retirement village it is different, of course. You have your own private unit where couples can stay together. But you do get help with the things you cannot do for yourself anymore.

The disadvantage is that these residences are usually privately run and can cost quite a bit of money for the private organisations do have to make a profit for their share-holders. Peter’s and my mantra seems to be to stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible!

At the moment we have quite a bit of rain here in Dapto. It has been raining off and on since Sunday night. Monday morning I went for a little walk before it starting raining again. Today, Tuesday, it is very wet and cold. No sunshine, none whatsoever. Ah well, I am comfortably warm near a heater.

Around lunchtime we’ll be going out to buy some groceries. Peter hopes that the rain is going to ease off a bit so that he can go for some running before we go out in our car for our shopping. Peter did not do any running for a couple of days. So he’s really keen to do it today.

Short Story Writing and a bit of Musing

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. 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.

Towards the End of May

This is near the entrance of the Great Hall where the five Buddhas are.

I bought a card with the five Buddhas on it. So this is just a copy of the card. At the back of the card it says:

“Nan Tien Temple is the largest Buddhist Temple in the Southern Hemisphere. It is also known as ‘Southern Paradise’. The Temple has evolved into a harmonious place where the East and West meet and merge. . . . .”

Nan Tien Temple, Berkeley Road, Berkeley, NSW, 2506, Australia, http://www.nantien.org.au

We’ve seen David yesterday. The place where he’s staying is called Nursing Home now. I think previously it was called Age Care Facility. David is still in te same room where we’ve seen him before. He was asleep when we arrived. The first thing he said when he woke up was: ‘I have a Mother’s Day Gift for Mama.’

I was thrilled that he had thought of me. And he had waited since Mothers’ Day for our arrival so he could hand me his gift! He wrote out a Mothers’ Day card for me as well! Well, Mother’s Day had been more than two weeks ago. His birthday was on the 8th of May. On the same day it is also his sister Kathy’s birthday. Kathy is ten years younger than David. His brother Anthony has been appointed David’s guardian. Anthony told him that Kathy was going to visit him soon. She lives a bit further away from Sydney now. David is very much looking forward to his sister’s visit, I think. His friend Steve had also seen him a couple of times already. And of course Anthony would see him on a regular basis.

We were able to sit with David outside in a sunny courtyard. A nursing help ask him whether he’d like to have his lunch outside. David did like it that lunch was brought there. The friendly help wanted to tie a large bib around his neck. But he indicated that he didn’t need it. David ended up not eating very much.

Today we started trimming some of the trees. After about one hour we thought that we had done enough gardening for the day. Tomorrow we are going to do a bit more gardening.