Past

Way back in the first half of the 1970s I had my first kiss in that house. Well, not the actual house itself, but a kid's wendy house that was built just over the hedge there. Her name was Helen and our relationship was short lived (I wanted to climb trees, she wanted to play with dolls 'n prams 'n stuff. Bleh...).

Anyway, being 6 or 7 at the time we took the mature decision to have a break and see other people (I rebounded on Action Man I think). We saw each other through Primary and Secondary school but we never snogged in a hand-built wendy house again.

Fast forward 16 years or so and, at our wedding, Helen came along as a guest with a cousin. My youngest brother Graham was my best man and the two of them hit it off and a relationship began. They married a few years later and brought up their two daughters and a son in a nearby village at the foot of the Ochil Hills (during those years another of my brothers got together with and married Helen's younger sister, but that's another story altogether...).

Last October Helen and Graham went off for a fantastic cruise in the Dominican Republic, just the two of them. Not long after they returned Helen became ill and in December she was admitted to hospital to find out what was causing her illness. The doctors and specialists struggled to find exactly what was at the root of all this and she spent all Christmas, New Year and beyond in there. Samantha and I went to see her at teatime last night. At 10:45pm my brother phoned to say his wife had passed away 15 minutes earlier. She was only 43.

'Night Sis. X