Tools, tips and education to help you live the life you choose

Why would you get upset with someone you love who has survived after spending some days teetering between life and death?  Sounds hard to believe that you could feel like that, what is interesting is it has happened to both my Mum and Him and I reckon they were perfectly justified in feeling that way.

As mentioned in the last post we went on a big trip to visit His mother, Nana, as she is not in the greatest of health.  A few days after we returned we got the message that Nana was in hospital.  The next day we got the message she had declined, was intubated and air lifted out to Adelaide with a very poor prognosis.  He rushed over to Adelaide to be with her.

The next eight days were a roller coaster of emotions as there seemed to be signs of hope which were often dashed.  The doctors did not seem optimistic.  He was also suffering with a bit of the flu, not sleeping well and generally feeling the strain of it all.  In the end it got to the live or die bit where they were to pull her breathing tube out and it wasn’t going to be replaced. 

She lived, in fact, she thrived.  Within 24 hours she was sitting up and talking.  So why would he feel upset with her.  It was at this point that she noticed he was a bit sick and showed a total lack of understanding or empathy for the worry and what he had been through over the last ten days.

The story is the same for my Mum and what she went through with my Aunt, her sister.  She spent several days by her bed in Intensive Care and then my Aunt made a similar recovery and seemed to be revelling in all the attention and completely oblivious to the stress that Mum had been through.

In defence of Nana and Aunt they were out to it for most of the period prior to their recoveries so they hadn’t spent time worrying about whether they were going to live.  They may have been surprised that Mum and Him did not seem so completely overjoyed.  This comes down to having a bit of empathy, putting yourself in the shoes of the other person. 

Similarly in life you can find that someone you are dealing with does not react as you would expect.  Stop for a moment and think about what is going on for them, ask them about what they are feeling.  We can often get caught up in our view of the world and events and not realise that other people may be feeling differently for a variety of reasons as it was with my Aunt and Nana and Mum and Him.

We had a wonderful weekend down at the coast.  We stayed in a house that had the lake entrance at the end of the garden.  The water there was shallow enough to go wading in and explore sand banks.  The beach was a couple of minutes drive up the road and to top it off the weather was beaut, hot but not too hot.

The other thing we discovered about the house was the birds.  The rosellas and a variety of other colourful birds came down to visit each day and eat any seed you put out for them.  There was a container in the room off the deck that had some bird seed in it and a warning written on top.  It said ‘close the screen door or the birds will follow you!

I can believe that too, they were certainly not backward in coming forward for food, even with Dog in the background.  It was a beautiful thing to watch as the kids took a handful of seeds and held their hands out for the birds to land on and eat the seed.  Son was slightly discouraged for a while after one bird tried to have a chomp of his hand.  Daughter was enthralled when one bird landed on her head.

Daughter loved the kangaroos and rabbits we spotted in the neighbours yards when I took her for a quick walk later.  She loves animals and thought we should take some home. 

So what has my wonderful weekend got to do with you?  I am trying to remind you about the importance of spending some time living in the moment.  You can spend all your time worrying about what might happen, that pile of ironing and the dishes that need doing and the things you didn’t finish at work today.  Don’t forget to stop sometimes and enjoy what is going on around you.  This time of year it can be stressful getting everything ready for Christmas, you can forget that it is supposed be a time to enjoy.  As the saying goes, take the time to stop and smell the roses.

It doesn’t have to take a long time but it can leave you feeling refreshed and positive.  For instance watching the kids with the birds was say twenty minutes spent seeing the joy in their faces and the beauty of the birds.  And believe it or not, the washing up waited!