Life is full of ups and downs.

We were living Covid Free.

For at least six months we have been Covid free in the community in New Zealand. Anyone coming into the country has had to spend two weeks in isolation centres and sometimes it has reared its ugly head there. We have kept it out of the community and when we have looked overseas we have felt superior and fortunate.  We had been working through the population getting more people vaccinated, but even then it has been at a reasonably relaxed pace. We have let other nations have the vaccine, we were coping quite well without it. But then suddenly it was discovered in our community with one case, and it was the fast spreading delta variety. The government has put us immediately in Lockdown initially for three days. As far as they can tell it has come in from Australia, the New South Wales version. They are tracing it and finding more people exposed to it. From one person reported, suddenly we have now got 31 cases with lots of exploration, tracing and testing to do. Today they have added to our lockdown days until next Tuesday - a total of seven days. Of course there have been some protests, some unnecessary panic buying, and lots of questions of the government. But most people are happy and confident that "going early and going hard" will help us sort it out. Delta is a bit more difficult and people are getting tested in their thousands, more people are getting vaccinated and there is a sense of unknown about life again. We have been fortunate, for us life has generally been normal except much fewer tourists and not the freedom to pop overseas or have overseas friends and family here.  Even at the latest briefing now they recognise the links of all the cases so far, so they are making confident sounds, but we are in lockdown until next Tuesday at midnight. 

We are now fully vaccinated

The other day we had our second vaccination. We had been told that it impacts you more than the first injection, but we thought it was not as bad as the sore arm of the first vaccine. We feel a certain relief about that. We are happy to isolate and I am enjoying time to get some little jobs done. As far as my cancer is concerned I do feel wheezy more often. Sometimes I think somebody has said something behind me and I turn around and realise that it is just a wheeze in my chest. I had one moment yesterday when for some reason I struggled to get my breath and got a sore chest out of it. I struggled to get to sleep last night and wondered if this was a sign of things to come. An ex-politician died today and I watched a video of him discussing his cancer. He wasn't afraid to die, it was just "the manner of the dying" that scared him a bit.  I think that is where I am at. I am reluctantly accepting the early death, but I don't know about the misery I may have to go through getting there. With a sore chest and wheezy lungs last night I thought about that. This morning my brother rang me at about 10 a.m. and I had to admit to still being in bed, relaxed and reading. I have, however, had a good day today. I finished my first Lockdown project. I made a "garage" for my wheel barrow. Church elder, the late Ian Chadwick gave me the barrow in the late 1980's. It did a heap of work on Habitat for Humanity sites and was falling to bits. One of the volunteers disappeared it and brought it back a week or so later renovated with a flash plastic tray. I have since put a puncture free tyre on it. It is too good to be left outside but takes up room in garage, workshop and shed, so today we finished a special parking garage just for it. I am so fortunate for the people who have helped me on life's journey. Ian was a great guy. I remember after I took his funeral weeping on the roadside with his close friend.

"The Book" is finished!

I have been writing a book which I have titled, "Called by Love". It is subtitled "A happy heretic confesses." It has been on my computer and I have added to it bit by bit. I will tell my daughter that it is finished, but then add some more to it. I sent it off to her and thought it was finished but was reading another book and something prompted me to add another couple of paragraphs. I sent it to her two evenings ago and declared that it is finished! 

I am also writing the story of my life for family so I am trying to get my mind off the first "book" and onto this second paper. I have found it an interesting, sometimes disturbing exercise to look back on things I have done, and choices I have made and why I chose to make those choices.

May my book actually be finished; may I get through some good projects during lockdown; and may I enjoy the signs of spring happening all around me. 

Sad or living life more intensely?

Olympics are over 

The Olympics are over. I must admit to being one of the doubters. I felt for the Japanese people who were afraid of what it would do to the Covid numbers in their country. Their numbers of infections and deaths were rising before the Olympics started and I feared that having so many people travelling in and out of the country, it could have been devastating for the population. I wondered about the wisdom of holding the sports festival. But it went ahead and everything seems to have been well managed. I guess there will be a collective sigh of relief from the Japanese population when the last athletes leave. It seems to have been well managed. 

New Zealand Athletes did well.

Of course as a loyal kiwi I was delighted whenever any of our athletes got a medal. We "punched above our own weight" and had the best medal total we have ever had. There were some astounding results for some of our competitors.  In spite of my caution about the games I managed to watch most medal winning competitions for the New Zealand team. I cried with each one. Why? I have been trying to figure that out. I LOVE New Zealand, I think there is no better country to live in. I am proud of our athletes, but why the tears as the NZ national anthem is sounded, the flag raised and the medals are presented? 

Part of it maybe because as I know my life is short, I am simply living life more intensely, and tears flow because whatever feeling I feel, I feel more intently now?

I wonder too if it is because at other times I have used the Olympics or Commonwealth Games to spur me to get out and pound the pavement, go to the gym or climb the hills. But this time I know as my lungs seem to me to be "drawing in" that whatever athletic prowess I had has gone for good.  Maybe I am simply sorry for myself?

They had the replays of the winners on TV last night and I found I had to leave the room. It was too gut wrenching for me.

Anyway, I am a proud New Zealander, not just because of the skills of my fellow citizens, but because of the way they carried themselves during the games, expressing real sportsmanship. 

The First Medal struck a chord

The very first medal we got was a bronze in the Triathlon. It was all very dramatic. Our young triathlete had done so well and crossed the line. He immediately found himself coming to the aid of the gold medalist who had crossed the line and had collapsed on the ground groaning and in great discomfort. Our triathlete with others helped the winner into a wheel chair. Shortly after that he was interviewed. He broke down in tears as he mentioned the support of his family at home and he wept when he talked of his dad who had died 12 years ago and never saw him race. I identified with that. Some people may say, "That was twelve years ago and he's not over his grief!" But I could identify with his tears. When my daughter got married and there were toasts remembering family, I choked up. My Dad had died when I was 15 years old. Now more than 25 years later I missed my father. He had never met my wife or my daughter, or my children. He never knew what I had done with my life. While you do move on with grief, I believe you still hold the loss and it emerges from time to time. 

Five young lives lost needlessly

We went to Christchurch for immunotherapy treatment. While the side effects are not as noticeable as chemotherapy, you do feel exhausted. Straight after the treatment we drove toward home to the township of Timaru, about halfway home. We passed Meadows Road as we came into Timaru. We carried on to Dunedin the next day, Friday, but we learned earlyish on Friday evening of a car  crash, caused by excessive speed in which five 15-16 year olds were killed, and the driver (19) seriously injured. The car hit a lamp post in Meadows Road and split in two. One victim was riding in the boot of the car.  There are counsellors and trauma people arriving to assist the families, the friends and school pupils affected. I wept then too. The poor parents in the five, perhaps six families impacted will always hold that grief. Long after counsellors, relatives and the community have moved on, they will always wonder what their child might have become? In spite of the effort of counsellors and trauma people, they will be sadly impacted for the rest of their lives. They will no doubt have a haka in honour of the kids and fitting tributes with jokes will be shared. There will be celebrations of their lives, food and supportive (or is it "distracting") gathering will happen, but the deep loss will still be there.

An unnecessary tragic loss of life. "When will we ever learn?"