Here I was contemplating old age approaching and WHAM!! COVID smacks us in the face! My mother was in aged care when this all began. She was 91 years of age and could still get around with a walker, loved her breakfast and many cups of tea every day. She beat cervical cancer at the age of 47 and had a busy life enjoying her passion of gardening. At the age of 75 she fell and broke her hip and she recovered with a limp. Then she had Ovarian cancer – yes you guessed it! She recovered from surgery and chemotherapy! THEN …. at 91 she fell and broke a leg while in an aged care facility! She had surgery but finally succumbed 3 weeks later. The pain after surgery was just too much and she called it quits. My father died 40 years earlier.
What a tough old bugger Mum was! Due to COVID, we could not have a full funeral because of crowd restrictions so we had her cremated with the ashes of her cat Tabby, as she requested and kept her ashes to wait for COVID to ease off. But 12 months later no changes so we had a small family picnic at the cemetery she requested. We scattered her ashes as far away as possible from the grave of a family she did not get along with and played John Denver’s “Country Roads”. She was a typical country raised girl, raised us 5 kids with no electricity or running water. She had 4 of us kids under 6 years of age. Can you imagine the washing all done by hand – all those soiled cloth nappies having to be boiled up in a wood fired copper outside after having to cart buckets of water from the well! She had to have a dedicated washing day. They bred then tough back then!
Anyway, here we are January 2022 – over 2 years of COVID restrictions, rules and regulations and no end in sight. I am now 73 years of age and sometimes I am glad I am this age. I am glad I travelled overseas quite a bit not having to worry about viruses and pandemic restrictions. I am thinking I may not get my passport renewed in 6 years time – being an old fart. And to tell the truth, I am happy to stay home where I feel safe. Besides COVID, the world appears to be going stark raving mad!! The violence, drug use and greed seems to be getting uncontrollable. Not to mention politics and the media!!
Yes, I’ll stay home and become a hermit!
Talk to you soon.
Halle
