Non-fiction. Those Chosen Years

Those Chosen Years.

Throughout the years I have always found ideas to write a story. One in particular was the section of my life that has been neglected or talked about in any detail as it is a part of you just take for granted when it comes to courting, getting married, raising a family and be fortunate to still be around to watch the next generation go through simular times.
The good and bad experiences are all in the past now, but looking back over the crisis years when my wife Bernice and I had the full time job of raising four energetic boys from babies to adulthood.
After selling our grocery business we purchased a very comfortable large home in the city of Hamilton, New Zealand. The next few years were very busy with schooling involvement, sport and family outings. They all played rugby football and there were times when all four played in different parts of the city and somehow I managed to see part of their games.
Throughout the years we had the usual problems with accidents and sickness, I can recall taking the four boys to hospital at the same time, one with tonsillitis, another with a piano wire embedded in his leg, next a broken collar bone and the last had a cut head that needed stitches removed.
As the boys grew so did the financial burden, there were times when I would lie awake at night wondering how I was going to pay the monthly mortgage of $30, somehow I must have managed.
Annual holidays were great, usually camping at a beach, one year I took the boys into a mountain range for two weeks, they were each allowed to bring a friend so that meant I had eight energetic boys to organise with tramps, discovering bush animals and birds and the evenings hunting possums. There was no arguing or fighting, I managed to keep them occupied with chores and stories around the campfire and bedtime was no problem for them. A lovely mountain stream close by was not only good for a refreshing swim; it also kept my daily bottle of beer nice and cool. I can remember one night there was an earthquake, which could be heard rumbling over the hills, and finally shaking the ground, my first thoughts were that the boys would wake and be scared and want to go home, thank goodness they slept right through it. I must have been a little crazy to agree to go bush for a couple of weeks of my annual holidays.
Another happy time was when I borrowed my brothers caravan for a beach holiday, nearing the end we had a bad storm and the park was flooded by a swollen stream, the caravan was half full of mud and took weeks of cleaning and repairs .As our home was large we decided to foster a child and we decided on a girl who has been a great pleasure to have and female company for my wife.
Time goes swiftly on when you lead a busy life organising and guiding children through their schooling, trying to answer the many questions of why, how and when, nobody seems to have degrees in raising children, I guess it is mostly common sense and luck.
When their education was complete, one by one the boys started work and were soon joining the ranks of having their first girl friends, then going flatting and buying cars. The questions grew less but a good family meal was always an attraction.
My wife died soon after the youngest started to work and I was soon left with a home, which once was very noisy, but happy, now it was quiet, empty and full of memories. My wife and I had started our long time ambition of travel, we had discovered that it was easier to save for our holiday and sadly we only had one trip. This made me realise how life could be easily cut short so over the next twenty years I have managed to see a large part of the world.
Most of my family live in Australia so I decided that in my twilight years, I should live to them closer and after giving it some serious thoughts I moved from New Zealand to watch the next generation of my family grow up.