One of the most inspirational people

Whenever I feel down or feel that my life is hard done by, somtimes I think about the most amazing woman I know of. She is my father´s cousin. She lives here in Austria in the sort of area my husband describes as the place where the fox doesn´t kill the chicken or else they would be all alone (although Austria doesn´t know isolation like Australia does. This is the Austrian version of it. But come winter when the snow is 5 metres high and you can´t get out of the front door, the sense of isolation and hardship is just the same).

M is about 60 years old and has 5 children, all who have left. She has spent the past 40 years in this same house which has not changed at all in that time. The house is more than primitive. There is only concrete on the floors. Very little furniture. She still cooks on a wood stove. She buys virtually nothing from a shop as it is too far away and costs too much. She says that she only goes into town to go to church. She has only an outdoor 'long drop' toilet and a cold running shower. In winter, the snow is piled high and you have to dig your way to the toilet. When I was pregnant I always thought about what it would be like for her to have to go outside in the cold five or more times a night. She has one good set of clothes that I have always seen her in, and offcasts the rest of the time. Her husband buys a tractor for €50 000 in cash. She still waits for over 30 years for an indoor toilet. She worked until the babies fell out and picks up the pieces for when her husband decides he has done enough. She carried her husband miles to a neighbour when he gave himself a vasectomy because there was no way he would actually spend money on anything.

I think of the hardships in my life which makes me feel as if things are difficult and I wonder if I am functioning. Moving to a new country. Horrible pregnancies. Friends talking behind my back. Feeling lonely.There have been many times when I feel too tired or grumpy to go outside. Or felt that things were a bit too much and just stayed inside and cried. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself.

But not M. She greets everything with a joy. When we visit, she will go and change into her one good dress. She will take out every morsel of delicacy to share with us. She will stop what she was doing to stain her fingers purple picking blueberries for us. She will show us where we can find mushrooms and insist that we take them, even though it most probably means that their meal will be limited the next time. She will pick flowers from her garden to give to us and pile us with the raspberries which have just ripened. She never complains. She only speaks of joys in her life. She has endured in life more than most people I know and not one ounce of her has been soured. She is the person I know who has the most goodness of soul and has been given the least. She is one of the most inspirational people I know.