19 months on today & despite the sunny skies not having the best day. Had a memory pop up today on Facebook, which I love seeing, but they’re getting further & further away. It brings it home that you’re not going to make any more. I’m finding that really hard to deal with.
Also dug out a suitcase from under the bed because it was so hot, I knew it had our holiday clothes in from our trip to a tropical paradise in the year he passed away, but it was time. It still had our cricket tickets in that I always like to keep. We never knew he was so poorly then.
Everything is a challenge to try & overcome & it doesn’t get easier with time. But we get through it & on to the next challenge, it’s a tough journey. I’ll always be in love with Derek, he’ll always be my husband, that doesn’t change because they’re not physically here. I’ll love & miss him for the rest of my life.
Your words have brought me to tears. The little things that made us so happy, the little keepsakes are so much more precious now. I revisited the beach today where I scattered his ashes, a place in the past that we loved to spend hours looking for shells. I could not bear to bring any back home with me today and I doubt I will ever be able to do so again. I sat and cried, stared out to sea, looked at my single footsteps in the sand, went to a cafe and tried to eat and felt so lonely, so alone - I was screaming inside just wanting my husband by my side. The car drive back was long and exhausting but only because of the despair I felt inside.
Like you I will always love my husband and I will always be his wife. That will never change. I wait for the day when I am walking by his side and perhaps the two sets of footprints will return and confirm that we are back together.
Take care.
Hi, memories came back for me today, one of the girls at work is having a few days in Blackpool. That was the place my late partner and myself went. I sat down at what is not really home, and went through the photos, chuckled at first, then it hits, doesn’t it, no more holidays, no more memories. I can’t see myself ever going back to Blackpool, but granddaughter who is 4 ,doesn’t get to the seaside very often. Maybe I should take her, to walk in Nanies footsteps.
Your words have me in tears, talking about the beach. We moved to Spain in Jan 2018…it was Steve’s dream for eight years and I finally gave in and took the plunge. We were together for 30 years and he often mentioned living in Spain but I didn’t want to leave my daughter and friends… although my daughter didn’t live near us so we didn’t see her a lot.
The first year, I was very homesick, but by 2019, I felt more settled and we had some wonderful times, made some precious memories, visiting new places, enjoying relaxing beach days in the sun etc, then in 2020, he started having health issues, his legs were weak and he said his head felt fuzzy, and he was in hospital for five weeks, under observation…some sort of virus, they said. Just as the pandemic took hold and I was pretty scared, to be honest, travelling on the bus, there and back about three hours a day…I wanted to to be there for him every day, but because I was so exhausted, he told me to take some days off. Eventually, they said it was a brain infection, which they treated, but also he had disc hernias in his neck and was transferred to Malaga University Hospital to have two discs removed.
When he came home, he could walk better, but he was never really well again, with different health issues, breathlessness etc and he lost a lot of weight. He also had diabetes. They had told him he had a faulty heart valve but didn’t need treatment, which I’ve wondered about many times since he passed away.
In November last year, he came to pick me up from the supermarket, got out of the car, opened the boot then fell straight back, like a tree falling, and cracked his head on the pavement…that sound haunts me…unconscious and not breathing… everything suddenly started happening around me. A bystander came and did chest compressions but obviously, because of Covid, no mouth to mouth so I thought I’d better do something so I gave a big breath into his mouth and he started breathing, but was still unconscious. It seemed ages for the ambulance to arrive, all the time I was holding his hand, saying, ‘Please don’t leave me’ over and over…I’ve never felt so helpless and desperate in all my life.
Anyway, to cut a long story short…sorry for the lengthy post! He was rushed to hospital and a very kind young lady, who worked at the supermarket, drove our car onto their car park, someone else took care of the shopping, and the young lady offered to take me to the hospital in her car. Steve was on life support…when he collapsed, his heart rate was only 30.
He had a bleed in his brain, probably from the fall, but they wanted to fit a pacemaker the next day…he was fitted with a temporary one outside his body.
The next day, when I arrived, they took me in a room and the doctor said when they took him off sedation, he was unable to cope and they had to put him back on life support, the bleeding in his brain had got much worse, and basically, there was nothing they could do. His heart and kidneys were failing. They very kindly agreed to wait until my daughter arrived from the UK, before switching off his life support on 8 November.
My daughter stayed a week then had to leave me, because of work. We talked about lots of things, including, would things have been different if it hadn’t been for the pandemic. Why didn’t they do something about the faulty heart valve…they replace them all the time. We had problems with the language barrier so couldn’t ask the questions we wanted to ask. Yes, they have interpreters but they only work certain hours and weren’t always around. At the end of the day, all the stressing, and talking won’t bring him back.
I still feel very lost and lonely without him…and I cry every day for my soulmate… thankfully, I’ve always taken lots of photos and selfies wherever we went so have some beautiful photos of us looking happy and relaxed, which are a comfort.
There are some beautiful beaches here, but I haven’t been on one yet on my own…I haven’t had much motivation at all. Everywhere I go, I see couples and families looking happy…thank goodness for masks and sunglasses, as they hide my tears. The only family I have is my daughter in the UK…she hasn’t been able to be with me when I needed her because of travel restrictions. At the moment, Spain is amber and Claire has a flight booked for next Sunday, so we’re praying it doesn’t go amber plus at the review this week 
We really need some Mom/Daughter time.
Dear Joyce
My heart breaks for you. Life is beyond cruel. I remember the drive in the back of the police car to the hospital where I too just prayed that my husband would be ok and not leave me. I later found the text messages that my son had also sent to his dad’s phone begging him to be ok. But he left us and the pain is just unbearable. I know at the hospital the doctors who tried to save him came and spoke to us but I cannot recall a word they said. I cannot imagine your feelings while you tried to comprehend what was happening whilst also trying to deal with the language barriers at the same time. I think you were remarkable when faced with the situation in the car park.
I do hope that your daughter Claire gets the green light to be able to come across and see you. Do you think you will return to the UK permanently? Since scattering my husband’s ashes I am no longer settled and keep on thinking that perhaps the best thing is to sell up and move to be nearer him. Of course this would cause no amount of issues for our kids. One depends on me for childminding the other lives down South and would probably prefer me to be closer to her. My mind is all over the place but I cannot do anything in anycase as probate is still to be sorted.
Like you and your husband we took many photos when on our travels, many of them ‘silly selfies’ as the kids called them. Whilst I have not looked at these I hope that in time I can and share the memories again with our kids and now our new grandsons. But life will never be the same. I just so thought we had years ahead to make so many more memories only for them to be stolen as a result of an accident. So for now I will spend as much time as I can on the beach in Northumberland that we both loved and had many happy family holidays.
Take care and hope you have the support of your daughter soon. xxx