Love letter to Chris


One thousand ninety five days. That is how long it has been since you left me. But, then, you didn't really leave me. I feel you here beside me so often. I feel your influence in the decisions I make, the way I live my solitary life. I know you are here. As a friend said right after you died, you are right here, just out of sight, waiting for the day we can be together again. I have to believe that. There are days when that promise of an eternal reunion is the only thing that keeps me going. God, I miss you so much.

I speak to you everyday. I play the music we love, look at the lovely things we acquired over the years we spent together. I speak to your children regularly, keeping up with their lives as they keep up with mine. What a blessing they are. To still have that connection with you through your beloved children. They miss you so much, too.

The other day, Alice was asking about the rowan leaf necklace I wear next to the beautiful heart pendant that contains some of your ashes. I told her that you and I loved rowan trees and whenever we saw one on our travels, we would sing our silly little rowan tree song. She asked me to sing it to her. I did and she beamed and giggled. It reminded me of the all the joy you brought me. She knows you, you know. She may have been just 14 months old when you died, but she knows you. She hears stories and sees your photos and she knows who her Abba is. You would adore her, just as you adored Catherine. Alice is silly and wonderful. And I know Catherine misses you, too, so much. She is at that age now where she keeps her thoughts close to her heart. But I know she wishes you were still here. We all do.

I'm spending this anniversary of your death amongst the upheaval of the apartment as the work I've dreamed of for the past year comes to be. I am finally going to have that hydrotherapy tub! How often did we talk about that? It must have been at least once a week that we thought about how great it would be to have a walk-in hydrotherapy tub. And now it's going to happen. Another place where I can relax and think about you. 

Next week, all our artwork will be going up on the walls. And I have no doubts that I will shed some tears, remembering the occasion - remembering when and where we came across each piece. Each one tells a story to me. Each one holds a memory of you and me and our adventures. I miss those days. But I try to remember not to be sad. I try to remember to celebrate and find joy in those memories. How lucky was I that our paths crossed and intertwined and that we found in each other such incredible love? I don't let a day go by without being grateful for that. But, I must be forgiven for feeling cheated. 

When we got married, I remember thinking it was completely reasonable to expect to reach our silver anniversary. Maybe, if we were as long lived as our parents, we would see our thirtieth anniversary and beyond! But that wasn't to be. In that final year, I prayed we would see our tenth anniversary, and we did. And we celebrated the anniversary of our first date. And then, in a way that feels almost sudden, it all started to become real - your cancer, your terminal diagnosis. 

I remember back in June of 2018, three months before your death, that you asked me what I thought our time was. For some reason, I said I didn't think you would see October. I don't know why I said that, it is just what my heart told me. And, sure enough, you didn't see October, holding on until the last day of September. 

I remember once you told me how you just loved sitting in a room quietly with me. And in those final months, we would snuggle into bed in the afternoon when you would become just too tired to sit in the living room. How often would I end up saturating your shirt with my tears. I just wanted, more than anything else, to hold on to you and keep you beside me forever, but that wasn't to be.

On September 30, 2018, at just before 2:30 in the afternoon, you slipped away from me. In the background, our favourite jazz station was softly playing an instrumental version of "Misty." 

   Look at me, I'm as helpless as a kitten up a tree 
   And I feel like I'm clinging to a cloud, I can't understand
   I get misty, just holding your hand...

I was holding your hands and telling you how much I loved you, but also saying that it was time to fly away and leave the pain behind. And with two short breaths, you were gone. And I felt numb. I couldn't even cry. It felt so unreal. There you were, but you weren't there. I called your mum, then Lucy, then I tried both Olly and Mike, but couldn't get through. Then I called Callie. A few moments later, my phone rang from Callie's number, but it was Catherine. She was crying. I can't even remember what she said, but I knew, like me, her heart was breaking, too. All of us were caught in that strange, surreal moment of realising you were gone. How could you be gone? Why? 

You made me promise not to stay in the room while last offices were done, so I went to the kitchen. Fiona, the lovely district nurse, dressed you in your favourite and softest pyjamas as I waited to go back in. The undertaker and the GP had been called and now we waited for them. Waited for the GP to confirm you were gone and for the undertaker to take your body away. It all happened as I sat and numbly answered questions and thanked everyone for their condolences. And then everyone was gone and I sat and cried, waiting for Callie, Stu, and the girls to arrive to stay with me for the next 10 days. 

I play out these memories every day.  And with those memories come comforting and beautiful words from the poets, from e.e. cummings to W.H. Auden. And, as Auden said, I think of these words and feel them to my very soul - 

    He was my north, my south, my east and west,
    My working week and Sunday rest,
    My moon, my midnight, my talking song;
    I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

I take exception to that final line. Love does last forever. I miss you each and every day and I love you with every ounce of my being. Always have and always will. Now, if someone asks me about my husband, I simply say that I'm married to an angel.


   



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