It is time I blogged again. It is a pleasure to write my thoughts and opinions. Thoughts and opinions that I can share and discuss in this world wide forum. Please add your thoughts if you feel like it.
I am back from giving support to my lovely frail mother. She managed to gather her energies, survive and ultimately return to her own home.
The return to the home she loves and wants to cling to has been enabled by the amazing and supportive service in the New Zealand Social Welfare Service. It is my belief that the care she gets in her home is better than she would get in an Old Peoples Home. This is known in New Zealand as going into ‘care’. Care in these places can be very limited.
She is frail and failing but can still struggle with the aid of a walker ( zimmer frame) or with both hands on a piece of furniture, to move about the four rooms of her house. Someone told me that that was called furniture surfing. Surfing suggests speed and dexterity and neither is part of my mother’s progress.
There are good things about her life. She can read the daily newspaper, make coffee or tea and a simple meal and mix a weak gin and tonic. The later giving a special and pleasing charm to the day’s end - a sundowner in the language of her generation.
Do we all wish to get so old and so frail? If we saw that as our future would we still scarf down green tea, fish oil, soy-milk, rush to the gym and push ourselves to eat meals we don’t love but feel righteous about consuming?
During my school years my mother rode her bike to and from work and in the school holidays, when she took time off work, we'd take a picnic and ride our bikes for miles and miles to explore local rivers and beaches. When I look at her now it is hard to see this crippled old lady as that vibrant, energetic young woman who brought lightness and humour to our home.
I am now in my home and perhaps I am taking on my mother’s younger self. I am back at work, going to the gym and walking whenever I can. I enjoy my physical ability more because I have been experiencing the way hers has diminished.
The return to the home she loves and wants to cling to has been enabled by the amazing and supportive service in the New Zealand Social Welfare Service. It is my belief that the care she gets in her home is better than she would get in an Old Peoples Home. This is known in New Zealand as going into ‘care’. Care in these places can be very limited.
She is frail and failing but can still struggle with the aid of a walker ( zimmer frame) or with both hands on a piece of furniture, to move about the four rooms of her house. Someone told me that that was called furniture surfing. Surfing suggests speed and dexterity and neither is part of my mother’s progress.
There are good things about her life. She can read the daily newspaper, make coffee or tea and a simple meal and mix a weak gin and tonic. The later giving a special and pleasing charm to the day’s end - a sundowner in the language of her generation.
Do we all wish to get so old and so frail? If we saw that as our future would we still scarf down green tea, fish oil, soy-milk, rush to the gym and push ourselves to eat meals we don’t love but feel righteous about consuming?
During my school years my mother rode her bike to and from work and in the school holidays, when she took time off work, we'd take a picnic and ride our bikes for miles and miles to explore local rivers and beaches. When I look at her now it is hard to see this crippled old lady as that vibrant, energetic young woman who brought lightness and humour to our home.
I am now in my home and perhaps I am taking on my mother’s younger self. I am back at work, going to the gym and walking whenever I can. I enjoy my physical ability more because I have been experiencing the way hers has diminished.
This picture is Apple Blossom on a corner of High Street in Armadale. It's an interesting shopping strip to window shop but somehow these blossoms, stunning as they are, seemed rather out of place in pricey and sophisticated Armadale. An exotic Magnolia would be more in keeping.
Nevertheless there is a magic about apple blossom - perhaps because it is so perfect and simple.
