Introduction: It is now 2020, some 5 years since I posted on this blog. I'm not sure where the years have gone, of what I've done in betweentimes. However, we are now faced with the Coronavirus, and because this is something that we've not had to face before, (and history is quiet on this score as well), we are doing our best.
With that said, I've decided to bring my blog up to date, with how an 80 plus year old, is dealing with this situation. So please read on.
As we confront the Coronavirus pandemic, I’m sure you, like me, are facing the prospects of very limited availability of food and essentials, as the shops empty before the shelves have even been filled. People are panic-buying and even fighting over articles in the supermarkets. Anger is present in the process.
As a consequence of my health and circumstances, and again like many thousands of others, I’ve been relying on shopping for my groceries On-Line, however both Coles and Woolworths are today advising that this facility is being “temporarily” cancelled in order to concentrate on the elderly and vulnerable, by which apparently they mean nursing homes, not older and vulnerable people who are striving to be independent. What this actually means we have yet to find out.
Up until a fortnight ago I was able to catch the small village bus here to go to the nearest shopping centre Forest Hills a number of kms away, where I would purchase one or two articles which were not heavy to carry, but because the shops are almost empty before the bus arrives at the shopping centre, there is a big question mark as to how the older people are really coping. This is where prayer for others comes into our thinking, for there are always people worse off than ourselves.
As you all know I do not “post” on FaceBook, and tend to rely on emails. So I’d like to write a small sentence or two about something that happened to me this morning.
Riding my scooter across to the large Chemist Warehouse situated near where I live, I managed to buy a couple of “women’s essentials”, and learned that there was a limit placed upon them. I accepted that because as I said earlier, there are many other people who need these items as much if not more than myself. However, as I was coming out of the store, a delightful young lady who’d been behind me in the store, stopped me, and quietly asked, “Would you like me to get you another pack?” I replied in the affirmative, and said that would be so kind of her. Some minutes later she came out of the store, and placed TWO packs in my scooter basket. I began handing her the money, but she said, “No, no thank you, it's a small gift.” It took some convincing for her to accept a few dollars to put towards a cup of coffee for herself. I sat there after she had left me to go to her car, unable to move, because of emotions that filled me. It was her genuine kindness that had affected me.
Little things. But in the scheme of things for someone growing older and with increased loss of mobility, a very big thing.
We are hearing through the media of so many negative stories. Negativeness has a dreadful habit of dragging us down. So when something positive occurs, it behoves us to share the story.
Have you recently had something positive done or said to you? Would you care to share it?
You see, people are beginning to get scared. The drought, followed by the dreadful bushfires that raged through six States of this country for the five months from August through December, when people lost their homes, their businesses, their farms, their orchards, and livestock, to then be faced with the Coronavirus from January, has left people feeling insecure.
“Lifting" each other by sharing positive stories is one way we can show that we care for each other.
'til next time
