Being hurt emotionally is not solely the realm of the young. I am hurting, and I am old. I know I look and act and feel much younger than my years.

My man and I were very happy together for eight years. I supported him in his ventures, which sometimes were not to my liking. We had a good sex life.

It was one-sided, I know. He did not live my life as much as I lived his. But I enjoyed looking after him, and I loved him holding me. Our bodies liked each other, and I loved the nearness of him. I believe this was reciprocated. I always loved him dearly.

ROUGH DIAMOND; PRECIOUS GEM.

He had arrived with his bob-cat to pull out some star pickets, twenty of them, that were embedded deep in my garden. They had been supporting the standardised oleanders that lined my driveway. The oleanders had been cut off and disposed of for various reasons. The pickets were too difficult to remove by hand.

He was afraid of damaging the plants that stood between the machine and the pickets. For someone so young, he displayed great maturity, and his agility and mobility on that awesome machine were almost poetic, like watching an athlete perform.

The hurt Mickey.

I have always been rather fond of the little Mickeys. They are plentiful but seem to do no damage in my vegetable garden. Ten years or more, when I was very lonely, there even was one who would sit on a wire on the trellis and chirp away to me as I worked. He would answer me and did not appear to be afraid. I regarded him as a dear little friend.

SARCOMA! Cont’d.
Part three

THE VISIT.

It was not the huge success that I had aimed for. Definitely not. I was comforted by the fact that I had tried so hard and had endeavoured beyond my energies at the time to bring about a great outcome. I had failed, but it was not my fault.

A week or so later, Caroline came with me to see Doctor Porceddu, the oncologist. Very easy to talk to, he explained the situation. It was not so rosy a picture this time. These sarcomas tend to recur, and without further treatment, there was a sixty per cent chance of that happening. With radiation, it was reduced to forty per cent, or lower. Forty years ago, your arm would have been amputated by now, mid forearm...and he sliced my arm with his hand to demonstrate.

SARCOMA!
The story

It came as quite a shock. As it does. Knowing that there were cancerous cells in the pliable lump on my left forearm took a bit of digesting. Three times in the six months during which the lump had been evident I had asked professional advice as to what it was, and three times the reply concurred with my own opinion, that it was a ganglion, and that in time it would go, as a smaller swelling on my right arm had almost done. I had asked my son-in-law Scott for advice and he replied that a core biopsy would determine what it was.

THE COMFORTABLE OLD CARDIGAN

It’s happened again...someone trying to ram something down my neck, as if I am lesser somehow. I would not dream of inflicting another with my radical ideas, if indeed I had any.

What is it about me that enables and encourages these people to thrust their ideas onto me? Do they do it to everyone...or just me? I can stand it for a short while, being gracious, trying to see their point of view. But not to argue and debate fruitlessly, trying to make them see from another angle. I do not wish to change them. But they wish to change me.

I have been forced to do this twice in my life. Neither time was easy. Both episodes caused me much heart-ache. But in neither instance could I ask for family sympathy, because, as they said, I had asked for it!

The first time occurred when I was in my fifties. I was separated from my husband, and the man in question was married...unhappily, so he said. Although to this day, he is still with his wife. He was my art teacher.