I am an invisible woman.

   I think I've become completely invisible  here in London, Ontario. I don't even need magic for that. I just have to be what I am now - disable, poor and old, not beautiful, not pretty, not well dressed or with good make-up, just plain old. I am not ugly yet, people usually notice an ugly person, because he/she is different from others in his/her ugliness but me - I just plain and old. My stroke made me old right away - I used to be pretty (I was told) and now I am nothing but plain and old and that bothers me sometimes, because I am not used to be invisible and now it happens every day. One day I may be crashed between doors and people would wonder, what is it that stuck in the door so no one can open it properly. And it will be me.
   May be I am not the only one. May be we have lots of people like that, people we never notice, because they are invisible. They walk around us, they sit on benches and on pavements on the streets. They do not have anything to do , nowhere to go. No one waits for them, no one wants them. There is no place for them anywhere. At least I am not homeless, not yet and I will try not to be the one.
   It's very cold in winter on a street even if you are invisible. You still need some warm place and some food and not just coffee and donuts. Sometimes those invisible people feel like they cannot be invisible anymore. Then they cry, shout something, then a security shows up or police, or both and they make them stop crying loudly,because no one wants them to bother the rest of us - visible people. If you still can tolerate your invisibility, you are not going to shout, you'll keep quiet like a mouse,doing what you have to do - nothing, just don't bother anybody and don't open your mouth.
 When those people shout all the time and become very dirty in rugs, then they become a little visible and they eventually disappear from the streets. Where? I have no idea. May be they just die, or go to prison. I don't know. I've never been in that position, not yet. But I am clearly invisible woman now, as no one needs me, no one calls me or talks to me, no one is interested in me in any way, and it makes me sad as I don't want to be like that but don't know how to become visible again.

He hated nursing home so much

  When your husband is dead, what do you feel? I feel loneliness - like lonely for ever. When I was young I thought, we have to live long and die at once together, but when you get older you understand that that's impossible because we all live and age and die differently. My husband spent his last 10 years at nursing home, and I still don't know why he died because though he had a stroke and a very bad one, I hoped he would somehow recover or at least partially recover and it never happened and I had to place him into a nursing home and go to work to support myself and help my children to get on their feet and that went wrong too but that's another story. After 10 years there, he just expired.
   He hated nursing home and all that inability to do what you want when you want so much. Nursing home is a bad place, I agree. Only when you are completely helpless and cannot do anything for yourself, you should go there, otherwise you better stay home and take care of yourself as good as you can for as long as you can. Of course if you have a place you can call a home and can support yourself and can pay for some extra help. I am still waiting for my financial report from government as my pension is too small to live on and for some reason I am not entitled to get ODSP any more.
   My husband was very healthy all his life, same as me. I did not expect his early demise and now I feel like part of my soul died with him and all I need from him just his presence - I don't need anything, just please, be here.
   I am not a religious person so I do not expect to meet him after life. I believe that death is a final thing and there is not a chance that his soul exists in universe without a body. And loneliness is probably the worst thing after sickness that human being can experience on this earth. With me sickness and loneliness go together like two crazy sisters and stand behind me every time I open my eyes in the morning telling me, 'why don't you go and kill yourself, no one needs you any more.'  As if it's the best solution and I know it is not. There is so many things in life I never had a chance to meet, to see, to experience and now I have time to experience, to get acquainted, to learn. I have to use that possibility to my advantage. There is a reason to my existence, same as to anybody else, I am sure of that. I wish I did not feel that loneliness every day though I have to get used to it - there is not a lot of options for me now.
   I thought about going back to my old country, but my old country does not have anybody any more of my close relatives, no one need me there and I don't have any means to live there on. So what's the point? I will be as lonely there as I am here in Canada, so I stay. At least in Canada people do not usually say to your face what they think about you, they are more reserved. In Canada people do not like to interfere. They will leave you alone and let you swim in your own misery for as long as you can, just don't ask for anything, it's not their business.
    So, why am I writing all this? May be somebody will read this and will think,' I am better than that, I don't feel as bad,' or 'that's exactly as I feel, I am not alone in my misery.'  And it's always easier when somebody understands you and feels like you.

First time in your life you are on your own

   It's not easy to be completely on your own if you are not used to it. I never in my life lived on my own, I always had somebody around. My parents, then my husband, then my kids.
  And now I have nobody but old me. And I am in a new city London, Ontario and I am in Canada now and I cannot work any more as I am disabled now and now I have to rely on whatever government decides to pay me to survive. I don't even know if I will be able to survive on that money. But we are born to live and life is not easy for most people and it's not going to be easier when you get older, you just have to hold on to whatever is left for you and make the most of it and I am planning to do just that.
   First of all I need to explore London as there are some better places I am sure in London than downtown, where I live right now I just have to find them as I am not interested in restaurants and museums much and I had enough stores to visit in Toronto where I lived before.
  In London I am looking for some quiet nature escapes if possible and I still have to drop my blood pressure somehow because I don't like pills but don't have a choice right now but take pills as my blood pressure is like a wild beast without a cage, you never know when he will jump at you.
  The only good thing for me in downtown is the library as I can use Internet and books, even Russian books they have, because I don't know Russian contemporary literature at all and I can get some knowledge here and it's very pleasant as Russian is my native language and I like reading. So nature and reading is good combination for a person with one hand working (and unfortunately it is not my best hand). Hopefully I will be able to exercise my right hand to the point when it will start working somehow so I don't have to feel like an invalid as I hate that feeling of helplessness and the worst thing is when you have to ask somebody for help - I hate it! So is there any advantage in living on your own? We'll see.

When life you had is over.

   When life you had is over you have to create a new life. There should be purpose and necessity and meaningful results and it is hard and sometimes I feel like it's absolutely impossible task, especially when you feel like a completely useless and helpless invalid though it's not so.
  I still have things I like to do and things I can do, and things I can learn how to do. I still can read and I like reading, I can write with my left hand though my hand writing is terrible but with practice it will be better. I can write on a keyboard with left hand and it is not that hard. I can learn a new language.
  I already started to learn Italian and if I will not be able to speak, I will certainly be able to read. I still have one friend left. You don't have a lot of friends when you work every day, but now I regret I've lost some of them just by being busy all the time. May be in future when my right hand  will be working I will be able to have a part time job, or may be I will write a novel, I have some ideas, had them for a long time, just had no time for that before and now time is all I have, I can use it in full if I want or just be a lady of leisure. How far it will take me? That no one knows. And experience is still experience and a lesson. I used to be a good scholar, so we'll see.
  My kids still remember that I am alive and it's a good thing. Connection with your near and dear is very important, even on a formal basis - telephone call one in 3 months.
   In order to make my hand work I have to force it into movement every day for many hours and that is difficult  as I do not have a lot of energy but I am trying. I hate being an invalid - it's not mine. I used to take care of invalid but I hate it and hate to rely on others - I have to be able to do everything by myself - at least things regarding personal needs. I still need to find somebody in London to socialize, don't know if it's possible, as I feel like a new immigrant in London, as after stroke my accent became worse. Well, cannot help it, we'll see.

Life after stroke and what can you do about it.

   What can you do when your life is almost over?
  Last year I had a stroke, so I had to quit my job,get disability, move from Toronto as I couldn't afford this city anymore. I did not get enough response or help from my children so I had to learn to live with my own decision and resources and it was not an easy task.The worst part about it is that you get depression and your ability to cope with it and your disability becomes very diminished.
  I did not know at first how to kill myself easily and quickly without a lot of drama. Now I know but I don't want to kill myself anymore. I had to learn how to walk and now I can walk without support and far enough and though I still cannot use my right hand, I am working on that hand  every day and eventually I will return my hand to original position I am sure, and this conviction gives me strength to live.
  I have a nice bachelor apartment in London, Ontario. I am still working on my retirement funds as my disability pension expired as I hit 65 recently. I don't like that number but I cannot pretend it's not here. I have to live with it and with my disability and fight for my health with myself, doctors and environment, as food we buy and eat in Canada though plenty not always is healthy for different reasons as it's very difficult to buy healthy food when you don't have any money. I will tell you about my life in London later. May be my experience will be useful for somebody.

I think the story of a reluctant immigrant is almost over.

Hi, everybody
I have been one reluctant immigrant for so many years in Canada (since 1992 actually). I severely criticized my newly adopted land without understanding it. Land that is so vast and so vastly different  and lovely that there is space and place for everybody and everything (minus jihads naturally).
   My path here was difficult and full of drawbacks, costly mistakes and real failures. I expected something different, I waited for something familiar. I longed to go back to Europe. Anywhere but here. It did not come through. I mean, my coming back.
  But something did come. I suddenly realized (fully realized) that instead of feeling deprived I should feel lucky. Lucky that I am in such a big country, territorial I mean, first and foremost that I can easily find or create my own place and space here without stepping on anybody's toes, without feeling that somebody is chasing me for one thing or another. No one cares and it's a good thing sometimes.
  It's a tremendous advantage of living in a large country where any jerk(I mean responsible citizen) can feel at home and live happily on a small paycheck and not feeling threatened by anything or anybody(minus terrorists of course).
   Sadly it can be changed. We could invite millions of refugees from alien culture and make hell out of living for everybody in big and small cities. That's what they've done in Europe.
  Who needs Syrian war, but it's still going on. That means that somebody needs it.
  Somebody feeds it with weapons and other stuff. Thousands and thousands of refugees are still flooding Europe. Most of them are not accustomed to Western culture and are not going to assimilate or be happy there.  I hope everybody who's deeply involved understands that.
THEY ARE NOT GOING TO ASSIMILATE
  and that's the biggest problem. They will create their own religious conclaves in Europe and anywhere else because for them religion is everything first and they know how to demand their rights. Ordinary citizens in Netherlands are buying weapons as they are afraid that their government is not protecting them. Sad? Terribly sad!
  Can we still be safe and trust our government not to make stupid and damaging decisions? Those decisions are so costly. They are playing fire in Germany now; they could end up in a civil war in Germany, no one needs that I am sure.
   Life in Canada is very simple. We do not have lots of historical quality ancient buildings,nor do we have sophisticated lifestyles for most people(work,rest,sleep,weekend,cottage,lake,hockey,fishing,library,concert for lucky ones that's mostly it).
Canadian flag. It's just a leaf nothing more. How simple and it says volumes. We do not need a European sophistication here, sophisticated 'culture'. Our culture is very simple - to live and to let live; to be what you can be and nobody requires you to be different.
  We ( I like to say 'we' now) do not give promises we cannot fulfill. We cannot help everybody, let's give a quality help for some lucky ones.
   This year is coming to an end. It was not a happy one for so many, but there is always hope that next year will be better.
  Let it be better and hopefully we do not need weapons for everybody, that my country can protect me. This IS my country and I am a part of it. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everybody!
  And let's not think about bad things and forget about the second bag from Santa. We'll manage. We always do.

What's going to happen to civilized world after invasion of Europe and America by muslim refugees?

    I think civilized world is playing a very dangerous game now. Well, in all fairness we did not started it. Or did we? Well, may be some political players contributed heavily but surely nobody wanted this outcome - mass exodus of religious fanatics to civilized world. Who gave them that idea -Jihad? Germany? Who(and they say Germany did)) promised to take everybody in? How many - 1, 8, 10 millions?  Surely, not everybody?!
  They probably did not expect as much as it is now happening and it's not stopping soon. Mass media have a blast I am sure. Big pictures of suffering people trying to get some help. Refugee camps. And most of them healthy young people who could stay at home and fight with enemy for their freedom, not to run cowardly with their constantly pregnant wives demanding better life and privileges from Europe, same Europe they always hated so much. But silly me, may be it's just plain and simple invasion. To establish their religious world in Europe, build their temples, have their own rules and demanding from everybody to follow them or else death! Allah is waiting!
   Put the rest of the world on their knees and make them slaves to their religion. They can multiply fast - couple of generations and all world will be theirs. Every woman will be covered, wrapped like a doll in a cocoon of dark sheets and a mullah will be calling everybody to pray 7 days a week, five times a day. Work? Who needs it - god and government will provide. Is it our future? I hope not!
  Fanatic is always stronger, he wins because he does not care about his own life or life of the others. All those crowds of determined deeply religious people from alien culture, they are not going to assimilate or work hard - they will make sure that they get all privileges they can possibly get from hateful "godless"society and some more, because Allah is right and you, schmucks will be in a big ditch and you'll never know what hits you - it will be so fast. It's already happening in Europe, just read the news.
   It's a big trouble to civilized world. Very dangerous situation, for sure. What Canada is going to do now,  - take from poor and give it to a refugee who has even less ? - That's the million dollar question. I despise all those crowds. If they are so desperate, why didn't they stay and put fight for their freedom and better life? All those young healthy man. Imagine for a second: when the II World War started and after Hitler invaded Russia - all whose Russian soldiers suddenly drop their weapons, grab their children, mothers, fathers, brothers, cats and dogs and run for their life to America as refugees to look for a better life and to escape the war. Funny, hey? No, they stayed and put the greatest fight and won it. And millions gave their lives for their freedom. That's what a Man should do, if he is a man not a chicken. I think society in Canada has been  politically correct for too long. Now we have to change that if we want to survive as a civilized society at all. Something to think about.