Dear LPG,

I read your news post that was dated January 15^th 2018, this explained that it was the most depressing day that this year is likely to experience, and I felt that I might have something to add.  Here is a short but very true story that perhaps readers might ponder upon when negativity begins to set in.

I am sure everyone has had the experience where, for some reason, their lives become a lot more closely intertwined with that of an acquaintance than it has been before.  I had such a friend who I met up with much more regularly about five years ago.  Because we talked more often I learned a lot more about what was going on in her life.

Her husband’s health deteriorated quite quickly resulting in it being impossible for her to keep her job, and as he did not have one, she could not see a way forward.  I just happened to be the person who she was able to talk to about all this at the time.

I was not that much older than her but, having lost a job when I was 58 years old I understood and was able to empathise with her.  Her fears, like mine some three years earlier, were that she would not get another job at her age but she had the added problem of not knowing how she was going to combine working with looking after her husband.   I remember her getting into a serious depression as those weeks passed.  She did not know what to do for the best and thought that there would be no way forward.

Because I had had a taste of what she was experiencing, I was able to tell her that there is always a way forward, and now three years down the line she is a full time carer for her husband.  Things are not ideal, but she has looked at her options for the future and there is a positive way forward for her.  She does spend quite a lot of her time caring, but she found Carers Lewisham and all the educational opportunities they had to offer her.  She started studying, which gave her another focus and a reason to become much more positive in her outlook.

I am telling this story just in case someone who reads it finds themselves, or a friend, in a similar position in as much as they have lost a job so close to the age of retirement that they feel there is no way forward for them.  

I just want to remind readers that even if you cannot see how you are going to get through your problems, somehow fate (or if you believe, God) will sort it out for you. Please know that there is a future for all of us even though we don’t know what it is.

IE, Brockley