Joy: A lesson in sharing joy

G’day. Let me set the scene for this incredible story. We had just started Family Day Care and a new service called in home care run by Joy, where the family didn’t go to the carer but the carer went to the family that had been referred for urgent support.

My hero in this story is Joy, such a smiley, never say die beautiful person, but I’ll come back to her shortly. 

Now to set the scene, Wendy had been referred in because she couldn’t cope any more. She was just out of hospital where her diagnosis was exhaustion.

Wendy had four young children, two boys and two girls, from preschool to Grade 8 and a husband Peter. Every day Wendy made four after school snacks, separate and special one for each child as they would only eat their favourites. Then at dinner time it’s five separate meals because Peter won’t eat any of their stuff.

Even when Wendy sought refuge in hospital, the relentless demands didn’t stop. Every afternoon Peter would bring the kids in to see her and they’d all be complaining and pleading with her to come home because dad can’t cook – mum we need you! So, Wendy would cut short her recovery program and go home to keep the peace.

Her greatest fear was that the kids would hate her and Peter would leave her. That would be just too much because she had always idealised that she would have the perfect family; she never felt loved as a child and she desperately needed approval and love.

Unfortunately her desperate need was almost guaranteeing the very thing she feared. Both her husband and the kids came to exploit her subservience and timidity and revelled in the power and control they had.

Joy was onto it- she organized a no nonsense mum, Alison, to work with Wendy and set up a meal program, got Wendy into

a Triple P parenting program and got some government subsidized relationship counselling – and Alison and Joy didn’t let up until things started to change and the family started to function again. Joy insisted that Peter go to Triple P parenting classes with Wendy and she or Alison wold child mind to make sure there was no excuse.

Peter started his own journey in how to respect and love his wife and he not only backed Wendy up but the flowers started coming home again.

Joy continued to support the family long after I took up a position in Sydney. And I lost all touch with Joy until two years ago, when I heard she had been placed in a Brisbane Hostel for Alzheimer’s sufferers.

So I visited Joy, she didn’t know me of course – she was just  another old lady among a sea of frightened faces. Same old Joy, same wrinkled face - her life reminded me of that Mark Twain quote “Wrinkles merely indicate where smiles have been”.

And it made me wonder just how many others there had been beautiful people in their own way in their own day. If you have someone old like Joy or Alison in your street or life, please take the trouble to say Hi – so many are so lonely suffering from what is the new pandemic, Relevance Deprivation Syndrome. Thank you Joy, you’re high in the hearts of so many over so many years.