Auntie Jean died last week

Auntie Jean died last week and I drove too fast again. I couldn't help it. Give me a good country road, some good music and off I go! This time, I kept catching myself before I went over the top because it's a very nice, very policed road.

Auntie Jean was our other mother. She and her family lived on a dairy farm just out of Brunswick Junction about 140kms south of Perth and about 20kms north of Bunbury. We went to their dairy farm every school holidays and most long weekends. We also stayed there for three months when our mother went to Europe (in those days fathers were deemed not capable of looking after their kids). I was nine and my brother was seven.

It was a haven for kids. We used to do all sorts of wonderful things like build cubby houses in the haystack (how we didn't get bitten by a snake I'll never know); do swimming training in the dam that was full of leeches; plait bailing twine to act as lane ropes in the dam, and drive the tractor when we were too small to reach the floor from the seat.

Along with the not-so-good came the good like hosing out the dairy after milking. The first kid to wake up in the morning (usually me) had to hose out the dairy (of cow pats) and it was a pretty smelly job. We used a high powered hose and sometimes it was stronger that us! Hosing out the dairy wasn't all bad - there was a reward at the end, which was hand feeding the calves, like the little fella below. That was fun. They loved to suck on your hand after you had dipped it in the milk bucket.

 

Freisan calf
Photo by Compassion in World Farming


 

The road from Perth to Bunbury is only a few years old, is fairly straight and doesn't go through any towns. It is a dual carriageway the whole way and just invited me to go too fast. Maybe I was a bit more careful with my speed because I was going to a funeral, or maybe it was because lots of people get caught speeding on this road. I controlled myself because I don't want my own funeral for a very long time. Maybe being over 50 means that we start thinking of our own mortality. In fact, I had a conversation about that with someone two days before the funeral (that's for another blog).

 

Anyway, I enjoyed the drive and although I hadn't shed a tear at all when I found out that Auntie Jean died, the funeral undid me. The worst bit was seeing Uncle Merthyr sitting in his wheelchair (the results of 65 years of milking cows) with his hand over his eyes, sobbing. They had been married for 62 years. I don't know what he is going to do now - they both were in permanent care. Auntie Jean was in the Alzeheimer's wing of a retirement village and Uncle Merthyr is in a total care unit. He spent the last year or so going and sitting with Auntie Jean every day. Must be awful. I hope he is OK.