Well, Christmas Day was very calm and cheerful, except right at the end when our worn out neighbour couldn’t really welcome us for a little party…the less said.
Now we’ve awoken to a gorgeous-loooking Boxing Day (promises of 27degC and no wind), and we’re mulling over all the worst things in the world!
First, our house guests had been to Evangeline’s old childhood friend’s for some Christmas dinner. Sounds OK, but it didn’t exactly work out- it turns out that this friend had been suffereing for many years with Parkinson’s Disease and Evangeline had given up cleaning her house for her every Christmas because things were just getting worse from year to year. Omitting the tales of two mentally challenged offspring (one a huge “oaf”) and one who is rather a sadistic father to his three year old, A-J and Evangeline were “welcomed” into a total cesspit of a house. Apparently there was rotting garbage and dirty clothes from wall to wall, such that the “dinner” was being served in the barren and neglected backyard. The man of the house was a long, skinny, haggard streak of misery, frozen into a similar state to his wife and completely oblivious to the impression the place created in his guests- or maybe ashamed??
I could go on forever about the failings of society as a whole, our health and social services system- but where will it get me. WHy can’t we live in a world where citizens can help a little in being responsible for their less fortunate neighbours, where the health system is funded to care and not to cut and where social services are provided by people with practical minds and tough hearts- not emotionally over-wrought do-gooders?
I wrote to the state’s Public Advocate about a similar situation where a 93-year old woman (blind, with maggots in a spider bite in her leg) was living alone in absolute squalor, having given up fighting her way to the outdoor toilet, which could only be reached by crossing a backyard strewn with palm fronds and other vegetable debris (and past a talking parrot in a tiny broken cage). I haven’t even received an acknowledgment- and this guy used to be a friend and colleague!
Why have we come to this, in our apparently “affluent”, “civilised” society- one of the highest AVERAGE standards of living in the world? We spend the money on fighter jets and Abrams tanks and make experienced and worldly older people give up their jobs so we can employ young, naive idealists who wear out in 6 months when confronted by the realities. In response, public servants and politicians make rules- but nothing gets any better.
I’d better give up for now and catch my breath… but SRSLY- I wish there was something I could do that is within my physical capabilities, which could influence some of these things! Arrgghhh…!!!
