Advice is a strange thing. Sometimes you want it, need it even, and sometimes you don’t. I have always been very careful not to give advice unless it is asked for because I don’t like it when, in the middle of a relaxed conversation with a friend or family member, the person says “You should ….” Yeah, I don’t like that word, ‘should’ either!
Yesterday and today I asked for advice and, because I asked for the advice, I gave it a big hug when it was given to me. My three chosen advisors (one a handyman, one an accountant and the other an entrepeuneur) gave me pragmatic, do-able advice and I wanted to hug them too but thought that might be presumptuous.
Everything seems to have changed so quickly. All the birds I accumulated to make our lives more cheerful in the face of Husband’s physical deterioration live here happily while Husband himself lives in the nursing lodge. And the cuckoo clock I bought him for Christmas chimes every half hour all by itself in the living room where Husband and I watched television – a room Son and I hardly go into now because we are each doing ‘our own thing’.
Tonight, at dusk, I stood outside and looked at one of Husband’s favourite trees. It stands old, stark and defiant in the front paddock and its leaves whisper in the wind. I remember the time hundreds of crows bombarded it with a noise like thunder and scared us all until they flew away again. I remember the time one of our dacshunds burrowed so far under this tree, chasing rabbits that, by the time she emerged her nose was all swollen. I remember too, that this was Husband’s mother’s favourite tree.
“I think that tree is dying,” said one of my advisors.
Does anyone have any advice?
jmgoyder 