Rickyralph Rides

Rickyralph, my good friend of 51 years, tipped up on Saturday morning. We shared my brunch. We talked, for 3 or 4 hours. It was good to see him and talk to him. Afterwards I felt fantastic. It was a clear late autumn day as still as you like and I went about my chores lighthearted and happy. There were few motorbikes on the main road. They must have all gone to some bike event elsewhere perhaps. The was stillness and silence.

How good is it? That one you have known so long arrives to see and talk to you. Fifty years is nothing. We are connected. I was talking to Lib about him that very morning before she went to work.

He told me a sad story. His relationship with his sister Sue was severed more than a decade ago, they do not see each other or talk. When I was a teenager I very much liked Rick's sister Sue, who in my adolescent eyes was so attractive. She was married with a couple of young kids. I have not seen her in probably 45 years.

She rang RR last year, before ANZAC Day, to ask him could she borrow their father's medals so that members of her family could march in the parade. These medals were bequeathed to Rick, he was his father's only son. Their father Dick served in the 2/2nd pioneers and was shot in the knee at El Alamein. For the rest of his life he walked with a stiff leg that would not bend at the knee. He died suddenly of heart failure in the early 1980's. He would have turned 100 last year.

Initially RR thought no, he's not letting his dad's medals out, then he had a change of heart and said yes. He took the medals around to his sister's house. His sister's husband said he would return them. A week or so after ANZAC Day the medals had not come back. Rick rang sister Sue. There was some acrimony over the ownership of the medals but it was agreed that that Rick could come and get them. When he did there was a set missing. Sue had loaned them to her son. Rick hit the roof, paying out on Sue for all his pent up emotion brewed over years and years.

I told RR that this story was ugly. He went on to say that Sue's daughter Mandy subsequently died of a brain tumour and that because of the incident he didn't feel he could go to the funeral. He sent a card. He learned later that had he gone to the funeral he would have been asked to leave.


In his card he included a quote -

" If I should die and leave you here awhile,
  Be not like others sore, undone who keep
  Long vigils by the silent dust and weep.
  For my sake turn again to life and smile,
  Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do,
  Something to comfort other hearts than thine.
  Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine,
  And I, perchance may therein comfort you. "

                                                             Anon

He told me this on Saturday and sent me the quote at my request.  In the discussion I told him of something I came across on the net, about thought process, the theme being fifteen things to leave behind to improve your happiness. I said I'd send it to him. I know he reads my blog so I list them here.

1. The need to be right
2.The need to control
3. Blame
4. Self Defeating mindset
5. Beliefs of what is possible/not possible
6. The need to complain
7. The luxury of criticism
8. The need to impress
9. Resistance to change
10. Labels
11. Fear
12 Excuses
13.The past
14. Attachment
15. Living to other people's expectations

There were explanations to these which I didn't have time to write down from the audio but it is fairly self explanatory and probably better left to think about anyway.

I told Rick he should try to heal the wounds of the relationship with his sister. Not overtly, but slowly bit by bit, send her now and again a saying, a poem, a gesture. Even if he never sees her again , he should let her know that he would like to heal the rift.