Catching up.

I have been very busy of late.
I was away for five days over Easter. Then went away to the Wondai Flower Show on another day.
Then there was the lawn to mow. I had done the lawn before I went away for the five days but with all the rain we were having made it grow. The wire grass was about two foot high in the back yard before I could get to mow it. Got most of it done but the mower stopped for want of more fuel. Didn't have any left. No energy either to drive to the servo to get more. I finally got back to finishing the lawn over the weekend.

I have been uploading, and sorting, out the 300+ photos I took over the both trips.

I was also busy writing my stories for this month. And finding the photos for this months theme.

So here are a few of the memory stories I have written.

                                       Hidden flaws


I didn't know.
There I sat minding my own business. I was there to do the bookwork for the selling of raffle tickets to raise money for the local ambulance.
I didn't want to be there. I had placed a time limit on my assistance because I didn't want to be seated in the lounge area of the hotel surrounded by. Drunks.
This had been my husband's job before he died.
Mine now. I'd help set up the number of tickets to be sold to make money.
I should have bailed weeks earlier.
I knew that the moment I felt I was being watched. The heat from his eyes burning into my skin. I ignored the silent challenge from him as long as possible. I had to raise my eyes to wait for the number when the wheel was spun.
The darkest brown of devil may care eyes twinkled at me.
I ignored him to carry on with my work.
He was persistent to overcome my not wanting to be the object of his next challenge.
I didn't know his name. Didn't want to.
I had never seen him among my late husband's friends. Trust in a strange wasn't something easy for me. Especially those of the male variety.
Eventually. We became friends.
Big mistake.
Before the heart became involved many of his friends told me all about his flaws. Dalliances. Bits on the side. The line of females he currently bedded. Even those who had husbands. Daughters of friends. At times he couldn't remember which bed he'd spent the night.
Each time we spoke I could feel the proverbial dagger being aimed at my back. This situation was hard on the nervous system because I didn't know when the real one would land. I like to live a peaceable life.
I had to find an outer.
I took a holiday.
My daughter died.
Kept away from places I knew he frequented. I suffered a few health problems, not from the friendship, making work next to impossible.
I had finally found my outer.
I decided to sell my acreage and animals.
I moved away from the area to a different way of life.
New friends.
I kept well away from entanglements.
I love my new life I've fought so hard to find.
The characters in my novels I can do whatever with them without them effecting my life.
But I still enjoy the company of friends when I need a break away back to the real world.
My friends, and family, are only a phone call away.
I had a lucky escape from living another dangerous life.
My first marriage was full of pain and suffering. No way was I going to take the third plunge to live in fear of abuse. Or death.
This time I knew of the flaws. I hit the high road to a peaceful life.

                               Emotional Clearance


For sale.
Going cheap.
Give away.
I don't want them any more.
Emotional baggage is too heavy to carry around for too many years. Not very healthy if you let the incident. Or incidents. Eat away at your nervous system until your health starts to suffer. Or your head is a dark place where you are thinking of ending your own life. And the life of others.
I once stood at the crumbling edge of a dark precipice.
Did I jump?
“You're made of sterner stuff. Don't take the next step,” came a gentle voice in my thoughts.
I stood at the crossroad where I had to make a tough decision. By the morning, I was shown a different path.
I'd moved out of the path of death to take the one to live to an old age.
The fear of abuse followed me for years until I found a way to release the pressure. Even though I'd moved on with my life the emotional baggage stayed buried to feed the hate in me for this person who'd crumbled my love to dust.
Time has come for a clearance sale. To clear out the rubbish to move on once again to a brighter life.
I hadn't known the whereabouts of the bane of my emotional destruction. All the hurt he'd caused buried behind walls of rocks.
A chance meeting with a friend, I was told of the area in which he now lives. The state of his health, and that of his wife, I let the last of the walls blast open. I'd never want him for a “best buddy”. I don't wish him ill wills.
I have decided to send him a few photos of the grandchildren he doesn't know about. The choice to cut off contact with his son wasn't made by me. I hadn't stopped any contact. I have never told our children of the damage he caused.
If he decides to bin the photos the loss will be his.
The hands of time have wiped away the last of the emotional baggage I've carried for far too long.
There will never be a great friendship between us. The first slap tore us apart never to be mended.
Time has come for a clearance sale.
I will pass on the information to my son. I have no intention of standing in the way of any contact between them.
Maybe time has come for the both of them to work out what is keeping them apart once given the path for them to chose which way to go. Before time runs out for them to make an attempt to clear away their emotional baggage.

                                      I was always “wrong”


This was my day.
My husband swore to stand by me in our marriage vows.
He crumbled at the first hurdle.
I had gone through all the pain to deliver the first grandchild. A daughter, I had.
Mother-in-law started a war. A war of one-upmanship. Or should that be woman-ship. She had to be the first to buy a present. And the best.
On receiving the phone call to say the baby had arrived she went into action.
My parents drove her to the hospital.
I thought everyone had come to visit me and to see their granddaughter. I'd have lived to have been in the car on the way home to hear what had been said about my decision.
My mother-in-law has beat a haste trip up to the jeweller to buy a bar broach to have the name engraved on it. Right sounding name but, wrong spelling. She had asked the woman who served her how to spell the name.
Wrong spelling. I said so the moment I opened the gift.
I had seen this show year past with the name. I kept the spelling in my mind to use when I needed it. I wanted to spell the name, “Jody”, but I was howled down to be told that was the male way of the name. I fumed beneath wanting to show a peaceful demeanour. Didn't want to cause arguments between family. Or cause a disturbance in the ward.
“Why can't you use the way my mother has it,” said the father, stirring the dormant coals.
“There is no way I'm going to change my mind,” I replied. “She should have waited until she was told the correct way.”
“She wanted to buy the present before my mother.” I could see there was a long rocky road ahead.
She had wanted a daughter when she had her children but ended up with two sons. Now. She could do for her granddaughter what she didn't get to do for a daughter.
The tone for us not having a close relationship had started.
He wasn't her favourite son but she had him tied tight to her apron strings. I always I had married the both of them. What his mother told him was gospel.
Even the nursing sister I took Jody to to be weighed and checked each month, was wrong.
“She's wrong. Doesn't know what she's talking about. Baby powder is made for babies,” was her opinion. “I used the same brand for both my boys. I had no trouble.”
Most babies are born with a different set of D.N.A. What fits one doesn't fit all.
The rash went away with the use of creams.
The battle lines were drawn. There was never a firm friendship between us.
His mother was right even after I walked out years later.
I was always. “Wrong”.
In her eyes.

Me. An angel!


I was woken early by the ringing of the phone.
“Your mother has been taken to the hospital,” the sister of the nursing home told me. “You need to go up to the Emergency department.”
I knew time had come. The day I'd have to make the tough decision. The last specialist doctor warned me what I'd have to face. “Do not let them resuscitate.”
I rushed to the hospital. I sat beside the bed until all the tests were completed.
The doctor called me out to go to the family room.
“There is nothing we can do for your mother. Her organs are shutting down.”
The time had come to let nature take its course. I explained to the doctor that I knew. I'd been warned not to prolong her agony.
“She's a tough old bird,” is what the specialist had said, the day a couple of years ago, when he'd taken out the life support system
My mother lived in a fairy tale world not knowing which was real. Or was a figment of her imagination.
The real world had intruded to call “Time Out”.
All her medication was stopped. Except for the oxygen.
My mother seemed at peace. She must have known the end was near.
I went to tell my uncle his sister would died in the next few days.
I have revisited that talk many times. He seemed to have known why I was there before I spoke.
“Lucky her. I'm sick of suffering. I won't be here much longer. My time is coming.”
“Don't talk like that. You've been telling us for years, 'I won't be here next Christmas'.”
My uncle had had heart surgery about ten years before. Had a pigs valve put in. He spent many days in Intensive Care.
I had a feeling he needed to get something off of his chest.
I didn't expect to hear the words he spoke.
I was shocked to silence.
He looked me in the eyes.
“You were there. You came to visit me at the hospital. You stood at the bottom of my bed. You were watching over me.” I knew he was telling what he thought was the truth.”
How did I disabuse his thinking?
How did I tell him I hadn't been there?
Was his mind playing tricks on him?
I had rung the hospital to inquire about his progress.
“You can't tell me you weren't there.”
I didn't have time to go back to ask questions.
My mother waited until two of her sisters arrived. She died the next morning.
Uncle George followed a few weeks later.
I didn't have our talk.
I did visit him in hospital.
I received the same knowing look.
“I'm ready to meet my maker.” Look.
Why had he waited years to tell me?
Why wait until he knew he'd be dying?
Was I to pave the way with his family for his passing?