The Hardest Post

February 25, 2018 Longrider Personal Stuff 76

This is the hardest post I have ever had to write. It’s nearly three in the morning and I can’t sleep, so I am putting my thoughts onto the page, because I need to.

On Friday, Mrs L, that anchor who travelled along side me as I navigated life, who was always there, with a quiet word, who shared my strange humour, died of the cancer that had made her so ill this past few months. The end, when it came, was peaceful, and she slipped away in my arms. In that moment, I lost half of me and ahead, all I see is a chasm, emptiness. I have had two disturbed nights now, because she is so much in my thoughts. For her sake, I am relieved that it is all over, but I am now devastated by an unimaginable loss. And, as an aside, I feel that the whole miserable episode could have been handled better.

I’ve talked about the experience when we had the oncology appointment in January. What a pointless and miserable episode that was. My moans about the NHS are not directed at individuals, for there have been those who cared for her and treated her with kindness and dignity, but the whole system treated her like she was on a sausage machine – it was impersonal and is riddled with a casual indifference; not to mention the incompetence we experienced that day.

Moans aside, this woman was intertwined in my life and now I find myself having to untangle it and as I look around me, the house is filled with her – her taste in decor and the clutter that she so loved. She was an inveterate collector with an obsession for getting the whole set of something. Not for her a collection of Terry Pratchett novels; no, she had to have all of them in hardback and preferably first edition. But, then, I can talk – for I am the same in my own way. I buy a bike and I have to have all the relevant accessories and they have to be high quality and match. We were as bad as each other for that underlying obsessiveness.

There were times when we would have long silences, yet that didn’t matter, because there was nothing to say and nothing needed to be said – and there were times when I would go off on one of my rants and she would understand. I will never fully understand how she managed to say the right thing, or not say anything if that was the right thing.

We first met at a Christmas party in 1983 and this May we would have celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary – I had hoped she would make that, but it wasn’t to be. I would not say that it was all plain sailing because it wasn’t. She struggled with alcohol and in those early years, I found that difficult. When she went dry, things improved dramatically and she only took to drinking again in the latter years following our difficulties in France. Oddly, though, this past couple of years, she seemed to have control over it, so I said nothing and let it go. But the return from France did cause tension and it was an irony that we seemed to have recovered by the time she fell ill about this time last year.

I will miss her so much. Ours was not a passionate affair. It was more of a quiet understanding, a meeting of two similar personalities who rubbed along easily, for I am as quirky as she was. We shared a love of music, art and literature and an equal contempt for the nanny state and the morons who seek to rule us. She was my proofreader when I wrote and I will struggle now on that one, for she was able to read text and analyse it for grammar, punctuation, syntax – and as she would remind me often enough; a tendency to repeat myself. And on more than one occasion would tell me that I had gone off on one of my rants again.

Ransom, my first novel was drawn very much from her experience as an IT support technician. She was of a generation that was self-taught and she was bloody good at it. So much so, that her colleagues will miss that expertise. I know this because I have spoken to them over the years and her ex-supervisor was here a few days ago. She had a knack of just fixing problems without fuss – and was happy enough to bypass the usual protocols if needed, to just get someone up and running again without insisting that they go through the help desk. So it was that people would wander up to her desk with a problem with their PC knowing that the fix would come without fuss. She was quietly competent and efficient and I tried to draw on that when writing that story.

I loved her more than I ever told her. More, I think, than I ever realised and now that she has gone, I so much wish that I had been more articulate about that. I don’t know how I will cope with the rest of the journey.

25 Comments

  6. Nothing i can say will make any difference to how you are feeling, and I have a very strong idea of how you are feeling. Some of us have been there too. You should however try to put things into context. You basically had 30 years together – most people don’t get that. You got to live with the love your life for all that time, lucky, lucky you. I only managed 13 years. Some people don’t even manage that!

    Right now, your head is a mess, your life is turned upside down, you have a funeral to arrange and attend, and all the unbearable stuff that goes with it. After that, it can ONLY get better, albeit by degrees.

    I can’t speak for all who visit your cracking site, but I do think that we’re rooting for you, that you have our empathy and our condolences

    Keep buggering on.

  7. Nothing I, or anyone, can say can remedy the pain you now feel. I just hope that time and the wonderful memories of your life together will help to heal your sadness.

  9. My sincere condolences. I lost my wife of 25 years to cancer ten years ago now. There are still daily reminders in the house & from meeting mutual friends and seeing places we went/liked together. You don’t mention children, but in my case getting my younger daughter through the GCSEs she was doing at the time gave a focus and a reason to carry on, despite the huge hole in my life. I found people were well-meaning and sympathetic, but would not take the initiative – a simple invite to a meal, or even an unannounced visit, would have been preferable to the “Let me know if I can help” attitude.
    And I found that there’s a surprising amount of inner strength available to help through the darkest moments – I hope you may find this too.

    • Longrider, I have been over in Cardiff at my Mum’s for the weekend and off Net so I have only just seen your post.
      Words cannot convey how sad we both feel at your loss. If I had just lost my Ness in similar circumstances it would completely destroy me, but I feel you are of sterner stuff.
      Talk soon…

  12. My condolences, I lost my husband 11 years ago after 33 years and it’s a hard road. I still feel half of me is missing. There are no words, only that it gets easier with time. Look after yourself.

  13. At a time when people feel that they must say something, I’ll let Christina Rosetti speak for me.

    Remember me when I am gone away,
    Gone far away into the silent land;
    When you can no more hold me by the hand,
    Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
    Remember me when no more day by day
    You tell me of our future that you planned:
    Only remember me; you understand
    It will be late to counsel then or pray.
    Yet if you should forget me for a while
    And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
    For if the darkness and corruption leave
    A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
    Better by far you should forget and smile
    Than that you should remember and be sad.

  19. Condolences, but think of what she is saying behind the mirror–

    “Death is nothing at all.
    It does not count.
    I have only slipped away into the next room.
    Nothing has happened.

    Everything remains exactly as it was.
    I am I, and you are you,
    and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
    Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

    Call me by the old familiar name.
    Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
    Put no difference into your tone.
    Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

    Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
    Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
    Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
    Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

    Life means all that it ever meant.
    It is the same as it ever was.
    There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
    What is this death but a negligible accident?

    Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
    I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
    somewhere very near,
    just round the corner.

    All is well.
    Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
    One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
    How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!”

    –Scott-Holland

  22. My condolences to join all the others. In common with you and other commentators I lost my wife, Bette, after 25 years of marriage 14 years ago as a consequence of cancer. My thoughts are with you at this difficult time.

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