This blog is supposed to look at the lighter side of life but today I cannot find it. A friend with whom I have played tennis twice a week for years, left tennis as usual on Thursday evening, took an overdose and died. It took three days to find her, during which time I had been texting, worried that she had not responded. It didn't occur to me that something so horrible had happened. She was a troubled soul but nothing indicated on Thursday that she intended to take such drastic action. We, the friends who played with her and her family are in shock. Only in her fifties, she had 3 children whom she adored. I went to the club to leave a card for her husband and the men were playing tennis as usual. The women have cancelled their games. Who is right? Would Caroline have wanted us to stop playing? Probably not but a light has been turned out in the club which will never shine again.
My father could play the piano. Not an unusual skill but he was deaf. He lost his hearing fighting in the army in India in the 30s so he was an adult when he lost it and therefore remembered tunes, even though he couldn't hear him. However he didn't have the skill to learn anything new so either you liked the old music or you didn't. He used to say that he played by ear and then would roar with laughter. He would have struggled in many ways with modern living but most of all during the pandemic, he would have lost his ability to communicate as he always lip read. There must be thousands of people like him today who still rely on reading lips to understand, in fact all of us do it to some extent, so please be patient if someone is struggling to communicate while you are wearing a mask. I went to the supermarket today and at the check out, the cashier asked me to move the trolley into a particular position. As I manoeuvred it ...
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