Losing Impetus

Perhaps it is the onset of winter. Or the wet weather, we have had almost continuously, for a week. Grey skies, damp feeling, gloomy news.

Gom & I have been 'sleeping in'. Not like me, at all. I am usually up early, whether I want to be, or not.

I have heard some very sad stories of people who are alone, so to speak. They have no family, & if they have a partner, & that partner dies, they have to go into a Home. It must be so hard to keep the will to live in those circumstances.

One poor woman had no clothes at all, to pack, when she had to go into a Home. Her partner had cared for her for years, with help from Community based Services to shower her. She lived in her nighty & slippers. It was all she owned.

I am not sure why her story affected me so deeply. She will be the tip of the iceberg I guess.

Another story affects friends. They are to be 'relocated' they know not where. They ~being the State Housing Service or whatever their name is this weekk~ are taking the house, bulldozing it, so the land can be used to erect 10 or so units. Small boxes of neurosis ridden people, would seem to be the indicated end result, if some of the recent, similar, projects are anything to go on.

It seems obscene to those of us who know how well loved that house has been for 30 years. They have improved it, at their own cost. They have kept it like a model showhome in a magazine.

We have been told the Retirement age is being increased, to 67, rather than 65, as it has been. The theory is less strain on Government coffers for Pensions.

Now they are trying to sell the idea that it will be better for everyone. "Use it or Lose it" 'they' say. A fit body houses a fit mind.

From my grim observations of my Mother in Law's horrible slow painful death from Alzheimers, all a fit body does, is prolong the death. She was one of the fittest women I ever knew. She rode her bicycle everywhere. She never suffered from high blood pressure or any other 'old age' related disease or illness. She smoked cigarettes, for as long as she could remember how to. She ate, probably far too much, chocolate, but it never seemed to have any ill affects on her health.

One might say, her body was a 'temple'.

A temple to a lost mind, which meant she was a long time dying, even though her mind had long since left.

It took years, for her body to die, because it was so fit, I would suspect.

Who are 'they' kidding, when they say fitness keeps the mind active. Bah!

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Onto more morbid thoughts.

Those who have gone before.
A Great Grandmother's headstone.
Goodness knows where her husband is buried, but it is not with her last resting place.

Here, more Greats gone before. Including a son who died when young, & another, who was not so young.

My father, who died in the night. It seems sad, to think he had had 2 wives, & 8 children, yet he died alone.

My Mother's parents, with plaques for our mother & an Uncle, who were cremated.

Our mother died surrounded by all who meant the most to her. With her death I became an orphan. I was glad to be there, but it did not make her death any easier to bear.

I have long had a love of cemetaries. They always seem so calm & peaceful to me. It does seem a shame, that they will become a thing of the past.

I have no desire to be buried. I want to be cremated, as my mother was.

A somewhat morbid post. I have tried to be more positive.

Sorry.

Connie Francis, My Heart Has a Mind of it's Own.