Monday, June 16, 2008

Bad News

Wednesday 28th May 2008
Carolyn’s mum has had a stroke, the signs appear to be good at the moment although the doctors have said that we shouldn’t build our hopes up too much as there is a long way to go.
This is was a nightmare waiting to happen.
It takes months/years to come to the conclusion that you want to emigrate, leave everything you know behind you and head for pastures new, leaving family behind.
For us it was possibly easier than most because by the nature of our work we have never really lived close to our families and have relied on the phone or email, or in Ian’s case birthday cards (he’s not great at small talk).
During the process of finally deciding that you want to make the move it is like playing a game, for want of a better name we shall call it Scenarios.
It is basically about thinking of everything that could possibly go wrong and mentioning it to your other half, they don’t want you to worry so give a very sensible, thoughtful but sometimes rushed reply.
But it has been playing on your mind which is why you have mentioned it and you have had time to think about all the pitfalls, so you turn devils advocate. After the first couple of scenarios your other half has learned to roll with the punches and becomes adept at thinking before opening their mouth and giving you more ammunition to come back with.
Now this little scenario game can go on for days before you reach a satisfactory conclusion, but you get there eventually and it does bond you a little bit closer each time.
Once you have reached your satisfactory conclusion, it might be two or three days before one of you thinks of another one and the whole process starts again.
The reason we mention this is because, the sickness/illness scenario came into play a few times before we could make a firm decision to emigrate and it was a tough nut to crack.
The problem is, to be old enough to emigrate and make your own decisions in life, your parents need to be older than you. It is only natural to worry about your parents as they get older, after all we have been ill so many times as children and they have been there so it is only right that we should be there should they fall ill
Our parents have been around forever, helped us when we needed it and basically made us the people that we are today how can we possibly leave them behind after all that.
The problem is they have their own lives and won’t go with you (some parents are so inconsiderate). So, we want them to live to be a hundred and be close by but they won’t move, what do we do? We have to do what our parents did years before us, be brave and make a decision. We have to make the decision based on the facts in hand and hope that for the next fifty years they will live a happy healthy life and will one day come to their senses and move out to be close to you.
This is a worst case scenario and although we made our decision on known facts, we both knew that the right thing to do was for Carolyn to get on a plane ASAP and be back with the people that made her the person she is today.
It is difficult for all of us, we could not all go back, so we wait in Australia hoping for the best and missing Carolyn.
The kids have been so good, despite being a bit teary they were up at 6am this morning ready to go to the CafĂ© for Ian to open up before going to school and they went to bed early without any fuss. Let’s hope it stays that way tomorrow.

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