Free

Viveca Lucas, now 89 years old was the last surviving member of her family. She knew her time was nearly up. She'd battled long enough. Cancer, not that anyone said it was, was not a fun experience. Some survived, but Viveca was sure she would not be one of them. But that was ok. She'd lived a full and long life. A life in which she'd had a family, been a wife, been a mother, and had even been a grandmother. Now though, time was getting short.

Viveca had been in hospital many months now, and as she stared out the window at the world beyond, she looked back on her life. She'd had a happy, long full life. That was all she could have asked. She gazed at an old picture of herself from around the time she'd graduated university. 'Yes,' she thought, 'I'm happy. I've led a good life and I'm ready now, whenever the Good Lord wants to take me, I am happy to go.'

On the other hand, Viveca's youngest grand daughter Hannah was sad to see her go, she realised that her grandmother had been in pain and she had been happy to go. As she set a lotus down a calm stream of water in memory of Viveca shortly after her funeral, she remembered that like the gently flowing water, her grandma was now free. Free of pain and sadness. Of anger and regret. Free.

Clearer Skies Ahead

Miranda Collier was the single mother of a single child. A 16 year old daughter, Hazel. Miranda and Hazel looked very alike but of course, as every person does, had their differences about them. Miranda for instance, being older, was taller standing at 5 foot 8 inches tall while Hazel, who stood at 5 foot, wore glasses with violet frames that covered her plain grey-blue coloured eyes. What both mother and daughter did have in common was their soft, wavy light brown hair.

Hazel wasn't all that you'd expect though. Hazel had a physical condition called Cerebral Palsy, a condition caused by brain damage that affected your muscles. Cerebral palsy come in varying degrees and Hazel was rather mild compared to some of them. In fact, Hazel wasn't even immediately noticable at all. But if you walked really closely behind her, you'd notice a slight limp in her walk and it wasn't visible, but she also had learning difficulties. Because of these learning difficulties, Hazel got aide time at school, and while this was a real benefit to how she did accademic, it was unfortunately, a real detriment to her social life. Because she was different, so clearly pointed out by the fact she had an aide, others exiled her.

So when Miranda discovered a mentoring group for teenagers around Hazel's age through a Cerebral Palsy support organisation that she and Hazel were involved in, Miranda immediately signed her daughter up. Like everyone was at something new, Hazel was a little nervous and unsure at first, but as time went by and the program progressed, Hazel grew to love each session and would look forward eagerly to everyone. Over its 6 month course, mentoring became a huge part of Hazel's life. Not only had Hazel gained an older friend and mentor in the young woman, Kate, with whom she was partnered but a whole new set of friends her own age.

Also as the program progressed, Miranda noticed exceedingly positive changes in her daughter. Her self esteem grew little by little and her confidence soared. At the program's conclusion, although upsetting for Hazel due to how much of a huge part of her life mentoring had become, Miranda was sure that Hazel was happier.

Miranda watched from the local sailing club's function room as Hazel talked and laughed with her large group of new found friends on the private balcony and at this sight, Miranda was sure there would be clearer skies ahead.

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For all the wonderful people- both mentors and the fellow mentees from my mentoring experience. Thanks for all the laughs and the fun. Thanks for such a blast! Friends for life.

Absorbed by the Bush

The Perry’s had 3 children, all daughters; Alexandra, Eliza and Paige. Alexandra was the girly girl of the group, Paige the studious book worm who excelled in academics at school. But Eliza was the most adventurous of them all. Eliza would go exploring every chance she got, on family outings, holidays, at new places she visited, even at school! Although this sometimes annoyed her family, she did it anyway. The only one who joined in her enjoyment was her dad. Eliza’s parents believed in bonding time and so that’s usual what Eliza and her father’s ‘father daughter bonding time’ entailed.
For a combined 18th birthday and graduation of high school present, Eliza’s parents paid for her to go on a two week adventure holiday to Glenrock Lagoon in Newcastle. Eliza had also taken two of her friends along, Jonathan and Samantha, or Sam for short. One day Eliza wanted to go for a bushwalk while her two friends opted for a trip to the beach instead.
So Eliza set out for the famous Glenrock Lagoon Bushwalk on her own. The 1.5km bushwalk was said to talk around two hours but it took Eliza a lot longer, for she stopped to linger and look at the beauty of nature and the natural sights that surrounded her. It took her about 2 hours there and another 2 hours back, almost doubling the original estimated completion time. Eliza didn’t care though.
On her way back, Eliza got lost, having veered off the outlined route as she often did to explore. She'd been absorbed by the beauty of the bush. It had taken her a while to discover she'd actually veered off the path at all. Having forgotten to take her mobile phone with her, Eliza was lost. Sam and Jonathan didn’t know there was trouble. She’d never told them how long she’d be, she hadn’t known herself.

Finally, after what must have been two hours but felt like a lot longer to Eliza, a kindly stranger found her, luckily he was a local and led her back to the proper path. “There you go love.” He’d said before going on his way again.

That day, Eliza learnt a valuable lesson. Always take a means of contact with you and always give someone a rough estimate of how long you should be.

Shades

Sienna Blythe seemed to be just as normal as everyone else. She had four limbs, two eyes, two ears, one nose and one mouth just like everyone else. Underneath the surface however, lay something more. Sienna in fact had aspergers, a genetic condition that meant she had a little more trouble socially then others normally would.

Thankfully, Sienna had been diagnosed at a young age and her parents were therfore able to start teaching her the things she wouldn't learn on her own from a young age. That meant now, at age 15, Sienna seemed no different to any other person her age.

Aspergers was called a 'disability'. It was labelled as such. It wasn't really a disability though. More a different way of thinking. A different way of looking at the world and in some cases, a different way of doing things. You could say it was like everyone was one shade of a colour, lets say blue, and Sienna was a slightly different shade, so slight that you could hardly tell that Sienna's shade was even different at all.

Although Aspergers had disadvantages, it also had plenty of advantages. For instance, people who had aspergers were often very smart, often in a select few fields with which they were obsessesed and they also often went on to become rather sucesful in their chosen careers and in life.

Sienna wanted to become a phsycologist after finishing high school in the hopes that she could help other people just like her and not that she liked to admit it, but she was well on her way to getting there.

New vs. Old

As Jarna had grown up, her life had been a mix of pen and paper and the computer. Now however, technology was advancing and almost everything was starting to be taken over by it. Although Jarna was young, she quite prefered the old fashioned ways of pen to paper and face to face interaction as apposed to the ways of communication modern technology offered. Jarna thought it was a lot better to see someone or write to them rather than use technology. Because, it seemed, technological communication was much easier to misinterpret.

One day, Jarna decided to see what others thought. For quite a time now, she'd had a youtube under a nickname that friends had called her with one deliberate spelling mistake so that her name had a certain ring to it- Kreative Kitten. She'd also added 2302 onto it to make it a little special. That was her birthday, the 23rd of February. This made her username KreativeKitten2302.

Jarna uploaded a video explaining what she'd been thinking about and at the end, asking the question that had been on her mind for days, even weeks now. Her video got an overwhelming response from viewers and had an overflow of opinions. After looking at each one, Jarna discovered that the answers she'd received were in fact 50/50, half of them supported paper and pen and the other half were supportive of technology. Yet, Jarna couldn't decide which she liked best. She liked them both equally. Both methods had their pros and their cons.

So, the question still remains, which method of communication is best? Jarna decided that they were both equal, but she still liked hearing the public's opinion. What do you think? Which is better? Old or new?