Clouds Of Grief

My partner, wife, best friend & constant companion for the past seventeen years died on Thursday.

Two weeks ago to the day she was driven away from me, and our home, along this track in an ambulance to the hospice, with the words 'Final Journey' & 'Do Not Resuscitate' appended to her notes. A devastating end to eight weeks of desperate nursing & care from me, to keep her alive & at home.

I made a promise to do everything I could to bring her home again, which I did on Friday evening, though sadly in the euphemistically titled 'Private Ambulance'. She had a final, peaceful day at home, attended by myself & friends, surrounded by mementoes of her life & the things she loved, and items reflecting the staggering variety of her hobbies, interests & passions. She left home in a rather more dignified manner yesterday evening, with waves & well-wishes from a few of the many, many people who loved her.

Words can not do justice to the crippling grief & loss I feel, the huge void in my life ahead, or the profound love I now appreciate I have for this fantastic person. Fortunately we both now have relief & release from the terrible illness & the distress of seeing someone suffer so much. In a crushing duality, I was desperate for her to live, but in the last weeks also desperate for her to die. The latter was terribly drawn out, due to her relatively young, and otherwise fit & healthy, body.

And the lesson? Make sure you tell your partner every day & often that you love them very much - it might be their last. Complacency is a terrible thing, and in certain circumstances can never be undone. As Sal has written in her personal epitaph "Don't put off today what you can't do tomorrow". Wise words from a beautiful & very brave woman...