Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia.


Dear Del,

The late afternoon sun is shining through the windows showing up all the dust that has settled on the wooden furniture, television screen and knick- knacks in the family room.

Aunt Alice and Uncle Rodger have just left following their first visit to us since we arrived. Despite the fact they now live in a retirement village where neither of them has to lift a finger to do any sort of domestic chore, she was very quick to point out to me before leaving that dusting should be one of my first jobs in the morning.
It was of little use my saying I had wiped all the surfaces this morning and the evening sun always shows up the daily accumulation.
There is something to be said for the darker houses of the past with their small windows… and maids of course.

However during the week, courtesy of our aged aunt and uncle, we gained an extra spring in our step after we spoke to one of our neighbours.
It seems while we were still packing to come here Uncle Rodger persuaded his daughter, the frightful Fran, to take them on the short trip from the retirement village to drive them to see where we were to live.
Our neighbour was outside in his garden and Uncle Rodger not being someone to avoid a chat with anyone strolled across and introduced himself.
We had wondered why the young fellow and his wife smiled at one another when we first met them. Now that we know them a little better they felt free to explain that it was because Uncle Rodger and Aunt Alice had told them that their young niece and nephew were coming to live here.
When we met our neighbours of course it was obvious we are far from young and are in fact retired people and old enough to be their parents.
We all enjoyed the joke at our expense while realizing being almost thirty years younger than the revered ‘oldies’ in their nineties must make us appear forever young in their eyes.
After all Uncle Rodger has been retired ever since we met him as this is the second marriage for them both. He was a family friend of another uncle when his wife died and Aunt Alice had been a widow for a number of years. His first wife had not been dead long at the time of their wedding but as she was the mother of the frightful Fran who evidently takes after her mum in every way, it cannot be a surprise that little Aunt Alice who appears to be gentle and compliant would have appealed to him.
How was he to know that tiny body of hers held a steely backbone and a tongue like a cattle prod?
Aunt Alice was seventy when she married him and so far they have been married twenty five years which makes both their marriages longer than many.

They were telling us today that shortly after they married when Uncle Rodger was still legally able to drive and menace the rest of us on the roads, they had been on holiday in South Australia and were given the opportunity for a joy flight in a small plane.
They took off in the plane marvelling at the sight of the countryside below them. The pilot banked this way and that giving them a roller coaster view of the sea many miles in the distance.
Aunt Alice finished the tale by explaining to me that after they were back on solid ground she had been very frightened and white knuckled as she gripped the arm rests while the pilot banked the plane to turn round in readiness to land on the rough dirt runway in the tiny paddock far below. She hadn’t wanted to go for the ride but thought Uncle Rodger had wanted to and so she didn’t wish to spoil his enjoyment.

Uncle Rodger looked at her with surprise. ‘I didn’t want to go either. After some of my experiences during the war, planes scare the living daylights out of me. I only went because I thought you wanted to experience it!’
For a change we all laughed at the same thing.
Still, they have done us a favour this week because we know now that no matter how old we get or feel, so long as they and those of their age are still with us we will always be young in someone’s eyes.
So long as I stay away from the mirror I will remain for a short time your youthful ‘flower child’ friend,


Cynthia.