Grab a drink, grab a snack and buckle in cause it's going to be a long one.
I married my high school sweet heart when I was 21. We spent 11 years together when the marriage ended. It was a horrible marriage from start to finish. One that never should have happened. I won't go into details about it as it could be a major trigger for many people. Just know that I worked up the courage and ended things in 2009.
At the end of 2009, I started a relationship with someone else. In November 2010, my partner and I were involved in a bad car accident.
I went through several months of rehab only to find out that my employer at the time would not modify my duties so that I could return to a job I loved doing. I was working in a cancer centre as a clinic coordinator.
I went through severe depression, I lived in constant pain and I had shut myself off from almost everyone in my life.
July 2011, that relationship ended and I cut myself off from even more of the world...I would only leave the house for an appointment or if I had to meet with my Lawyer.
I spent most of my time locked in my apartment drinking and self medicating. I wanted to die.
May 2012, I was introduced to my current husband Laurance by a mutual friend on Facebook. I was still married to my ex husband and he was going through a similar situation that I had gone through with my first marriage.
We would chat from time to time but not very often.
One night, I had been really down and was ready to die. I'd tried before to kill myself but failed. That night, I was ready to do it right. I had a full script of heavy duty pain killers and a litre of whisky to wash it down with. I had been chatting with Laurance online when he out of the blue asked me for my number. Said he wanted to just say hello so we could hear each other's voices. I gave it to him without hesitation.
Here's the thing though...I was living in Canada, and he was living in Australia.
He called me right away.
What was supposed to be a quick hello, turned into 5.5 hours of talking, laughing, crying and getting to know each other. That night, I changed my mind about wanting to end my life. What I didn't know at the time was that Laurance was ready to do the same. We had both hit the lowest of lows and brought each other out of it with a simple phone call.
After that conversation, we decided to skype and we did almost daily. One day about a year (2013) after we'd been talking/skyping daily, Laurance decided he wanted to come visit me in Toronto. He booked his flight to come see me for my birthday in October.
By the time he arrived in Toronto, it was like we'd already known each other for our entire lives...there was a familiarity to us from the very beginning.
He spent 3 weeks with me in Toronto. During that time, I showed him around the city, took him to Niagara Falls and we spent time with my family and his (he has cousins that lived not far from where I was living).
When he was leaving to come back to Australia, he surprised me with a ticket to come visit him over Christmas.
Australia had always been at the top of my bucket list of places to visit. My dad had lived here from 1972-1977 before moving to Canada after he met my mom.
I surprised a lot of my family here in Australia with the help of Laurance and one of my cousins. It was a trip of a lifetime. Like when Laurance came to Toronto, we packed a lot into a short visit. I was here for a month. When I got back to Toronto, we both missed each other terribly. I came back fro another visit over Easter 2014. I was supposed to be here for 6 weeks.
2 days before I was supposed to leave, Laurance broke his leg. I rebooked my flight so that I was able to stay for another 2 weeks. I had made arrangements with one of our neighbours who was a nurse to pop in to check on him if he needed anything and I had filled the freezer with ready meals that he just had to heat and eat. Well, after the visit to the fracture clinic, we found out that he will be out of action for 4-6 weeks at a minimum. I rebooked my flight again and ended up staying here for 3 months in total (just making the mark before I could have ended up in a detention centre for breaking my visitor visa rules).
I got back to Toronto in July and immediately filed for divorce...I finally had the money to do so and it had been 5.5 years since the separation. See, I hadn't filed for so long because I knew asshole (yes, that's the name I gave him) had always refused to grant me a divorce. Because we had been separated for so long, I didn't need his signature on the divorce papers...as long as he had been served them, he didn't need to sign and a judge could still grant the divorce.
It was only a day or 2 after I filed for divorce when Laurance and I all of a sudden found ourselves talking about getting married...neither one of us wanted to get married again, but here we were, talking marriage and before we knew it, we had planned our wedding. My divorce was finalised on 25 September 2014.
I came back to Australia over Christmas 2014. Laurance and I got married 31 December 2014. He picked the date and I always joked with him that he picked it so that he would never forget our anniversary. He's always come back with, "I picked it so that no matter where in the world we celebrate our anniversary, we'll always have fireworks".
I went back to Toronto after 3 months again because I was still dealing with the law suit for the car accident.
I came back in August 2015 for another 3 months. During that time, my parents were here for a visit and for my cousin's wedding.
Here comes golf. We'd been talking about taking up golf. Laurance grew up on Bexley golf course and hadn't picked up a club in almost 20 years. My only experience with golf was putt putt or extremely drunken mixed foursomes during Monkey Golf at my parents trailer. We ordered some cheap starter sets of clubs to get us going.
Laurance and I quit smoking on 6 September 2014. On the one year anniversary of our quitting smoking, we decided to check out one of our local clubs. They had a try before you buy so we did that. We hired a golf cart and away we went.
That was it, I was hooked...we found ourselves on the golf course almost every day.
It's now the weekend of my cousin's wedding and we're staying in Wollongong when I get an email from my Lawyer. The insurance company finally wants to settle the law suit. It was a low ball offer, but I took it because it meant that I could finally be done with it and come home to my husband.
We got home from the wedding and I applied for residency. I went back to Toronto to finalise the law suit and get my fur babies ready for their long journey to their new home.
I was back in Australia in time for our first wedding anniversary and I was home for good.
Back to golf. We found ourselves on the golf course 7 days a week. We had our own business so we made our own hours. We worked half days and spent the other half on the course.
Ever since he was a little boy, Laurance had always wanted to be a greenkeeper. He told me about growing up on Bexley golf course and watching the guys out tending to the fairways, mowing greens and changing holes as he had his breakfast before school.
He was hired as a labourer with the golf course in June 2016 working a couple of days a week. By July 2016, he was offered an apprenticeship as a greenkeeper. He came home and we talked about it. I told him to take it...that if he didn't he would regret it.
So here he is, at the age of 42, starting an apprenticeship. He was nervous, scared and excited all at the same time.
We spent a little less time playing golf, but we were still on or at the course 7 days a week. He was actually looking forward to going to work every day.
Now comes in part of my Photography. After the car accident, I started playing around more and more with my camera. I'd always enjoyed taking photos and now was the time to do something more with my hobby. I started Chickapea Photography. I took some online classes and off I went.
Illness and injuries have put my photgraphy on hold for a very long time. The only photos I seem to do these days are the one I take while out on the course with Laurance early on a Saturday morning while he's mowing or rolling greens to get ready for the days competition. I will often go out with him on a Saturday morning and take photos of the course and him while he's working.
In February 2017, I injured my left thumb. Like any dedicated golfer, I played my 18 holes and went to the hospital 12 hours later. 3 months after the injury, I still can't use my left hand because the pain is so bad. Several xrays and ultrasounds were done during that 3 months but nothing conclusive came from them. Next step was an MRI. I did the MRI and went back a week later for the results. The Dr asked what I had planned for the next day and booked me in for emergency surgery to repair my thumb...you see, I managed to completely sever my UCL.
I go in for a routine surgery that should have lasted roughly 1.5 hours. I got taken into the operating theater at 2:30pm. Laurance brought the laptop and all of his school stuff so he could work on his assignments while I was in surgery and recovery. Here it is now nearly 10pm and Laurance hasn't heard a thing from Dr's, Nurses or me. It turns out that during the surgery, I suffered a major asthma attack which caused both lungs to partially collapse. The routine surgery turned into my having to stay in hospital for a few days until we could get my oxygen levels back to normal.
Almost a week in hospital and I'm finally back at home. I have zero use of my left arm because it's in a full cast. A couple of weeks go by and I get the cast removed and I'm not back in a plastic mold that imobilises my thumb...I'm still not allowed to use my left hand for anything but at least it's not in a heavy cast any more.
I haven't picked up my camera in months now. Our local RFS branch and Fire and Rescue NSW have decided to do a controlled burn and training exercise on the golf course behind the greenkeepers shed. Laurance is asked to go and light the fire once the firies get there.
We stayed behind and watched them work and it gave me a new found love and respect for every single one of them and the work that they do. I took several photos and was glad that I did. It made me realise how much I missed having my camera in my hands.
Later on in 2017, the house we were renting was being put up for sale so we had to move. My MIL asked us to come live with her so that we could help care for her and my FIL. I spent a lot of my time on the golf course taking photos and playing golf. I finally had full use of my hand back and felt great. The lungs were still bothersome and I found myself getting winded very easily, but I was back doing things that I loved.
Move into 2018 now. I've put my camera back down again. My MIL became ill and started showing signs of Dementia. We put her into an aged care facility in May 2018. In June 2018, she had fractured her femer and was taken to hospital. Because of the dementia and where the break was, she needed to be moved to a bigger hospital. Our little country hospital wasn't equipped for the type of surgery she needed to repair the break in the femer. During transport, she managed to turn the fracture into a compound fracture.
It was a rough couple of months. Mum had caught a bacterial E.Coli infection which was attaching itself to the prosthetic knee she had. Because the infection had attached itself to the prosthetic, they could not get rid of the infection. Our only choice to give her some sort of quality of life was to allow them to amputate.
A week or so after the amputation (July 2018), we found out that the infection had spread and was into her bloodstream therefore causing her to become septic. Now her kidneys were shutting down. We put her into palliative care.
She held on for a few weeks and passed on 14 August 2018.
In September 2018, I went in for surgery again. This time to have my gallbladder removed. Surgery went well and I was back in action about a month later.
2019, Laurance finished his apprenticeship and became a fully qualified Greenkeeper. He still loves what he does and looks forward to going to work every day.
As for me, I can count on one hand how many times I've actually picked up my camera and taken proper photos. I'l get back into the grove of things one of these days, but for now, I care for my FIL, support Laurance with his work and play the game I've come to love.
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