disappointed_relieved - no idea where that came from…i was typing the crying face 
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Good morning.I hope you’re day goes well.Take care Derek.
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@Deb5 I think we should be glad they went before anything as awful as dementia happened to them. That was one of my husbands greatest fears. We watched my mother over 15 years with Alzheimers until she died of it. I can’t say I’d like him back with dementia, as I know he didn’t want that. Dementia is a living death in my book and I really feel for your friend and what she has to come. And she’ll lose him finally.
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I know but at least he is here … 
i would just like to see my husbands face and i know its tough for her but its tough for us as well … that’s all im saying ! That people need to remember that … nobody is more special than another in grief … she has a type of grief tbh … buti think for all us here … its much more final somehow …
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I agree. My mum has dementia & I looked after her for 5 years. It’s hard & demanding and although Bry would hate it I would selfishly have him back like that because I could still hug him , kiss him tell him how much I love him , even with no response from him , he would still be my Bry in my eyes.
Brys older brother has it now & it’s very sad but I’d swap places with his wife in a heartbeat 
xxxx
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Yeh thsts what i miss do much the hugs and talking to him … there are times i just feel so alone now … i never felt alone when we were together … in 37 years of knowing him … thats hard that is that emptiness i feel of not having somebody who knew me so well … xx
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Dear all,
Peter was ill for eight years. A few weeks before he died he told me that he loved his life even though he was so ill because he would still see his family, see his grandchildren grow up, be able to watch TV, listen to music and talk to me, he wasn’t ready to die, he still enjoyed his days even though he spent a lot of time in hospital, but even when he was in hospital, I stayed with him from 10 in the morning until 11 at night so he was never alone during the day.
It was my honour to be able to look after him because up until he was taken ill at 58 years of age, he did everything for me.
xxxx
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@Deb5 @Pollyjane @Lonely
I’m the same. Whatever the illness I’d give everything to have him here with me in our home.
My Phil was poorly over the last 7 years. Sometimes very, very poorly, bladder cancer and removal of bladder and stoma surgery in 2015, respiratory failure that resulted spending a month in ICU in an induced coma in 2016. And then numerous hospital admissions several in the respiratory high dependency unit over the following years.
I lost count of the number of times I was told he wouldn’t make it…but he defied the odds so many times.
Despite being so very poorly, losing mobility and relying on me for everything, he wanted to carry on living.
He used to tell his consultant " I love my life and I want to carry on living as long as I can"
The last time he was in hospital , a month before we had to have the conversations about where he wanted to die. He chose home. And he got that wish, as for last week of his life the wonderful Mountbatten nurses , and community nurse team helped me make his last week, peaceful and happy.
Until the last week i combined working full time with caring for Phil full time.
( We never had carer help… It was eventually arranged the night before he died…so never got it)
I would give everything to have him here with me , doing all the things I had to do for him.
He was my brave little warrior, and he fought so so hard to stay alive for me.
Sorry for the very personal account .
I know we’ve all got our own very special stories.
Love and hugs to you all 
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Aw … what a lovely ovrly thing to say and me too i felt privalaged to look after my husband too ! Loved him so much x
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Dear Cathphil,
Your story is like ours really, luckily I had retired at 60 (I was three years older than Peter) and when he started having lots of chest infections and more or less living on antibiotics for two years when he was 58, I told Peter we had had enough and we needed a proper diagnosis. He was diagnosed at 60 and took early retirement. From then on it was downhill every week, hospital admissions a few times a year, he could hardly walk but we soldiered on for the next eight years. We were able to be together every single day and night, he loved his TV and going on his computer and playing our music. The problem we had was that Peter would never accept his illness, he said he would get better, he even bought a brand new eight seater SVU from our local garage by looking at the brochure, it was massive, he couldn’t drive but it it was a symbol of hope for him. He asked me to buy him clothes from Marks and Spencer and Debenhams online and when he died there was a wardrobe of clothes still with the tags on them. I never once told him no, if Peter wanted to believe that he would get better, then who was I to tell him he wouldn’t get better, I wanted him to live in hope. Thank god I knew him inside out and when I had to make his funeral arrangements, I knew which songs, which flowers, the route he would want to go on before he was cremated even though he had never discussed such things with me as he believed he would get better, I knew everything about him.
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Oh what a beautiful story and similarities to mine in many ways the way you looked after him right until the end 
bless you xx
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Oh darling .lots of similarities… But my Phil was older than me , by 19 years!! I’m 57 (58 in July) , phil was 75 when he died last August (2months before his birthday)
He as lways believed he would get better, and so did I …
And another on common…
you might have seen me post on other feeds on this site…my Phill loved cars…his biggest incentive to get better in last 6 months was drive his mercedes again … He never managed it…and that was why having to sell it 6 months after he died was such a hard thing for me to do.
Lots of love and hugs
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Oh Cathphil,
Peter was 58 when his illness started and 68 when he died. What breaks my heart is that the specialist told him in no uncertain terms that if he had never smoked he would be a very fit man.
Your husband was the same as my Peter, he loved his cars, he collected classic cars so we could go to shows and display them, we took a picnic and chairs and I sat in the lovely sunshine watching people go by as Peter wondered around the parks talking to other enthusiasts, (our sons have followed in his footsteps, they do the exact same thing ). Peter was 3.1/2 years younger than me, I was 21 when I met him in 1964 and he was 18, but, the naughty boy told me he was 21 years old and I didn’t find out for three months after when he confessed. Peter always seemed much older than myself as even when he was a young boy, he did paper and milk rounds to help his mum with expenses, he was a train enthusiast and played football. Both our sons, to this day and now in their 50’s, still meet up and go to classic car and train shows where they take their collectors cars with them to show them to visitors. Peter took thousands of photos over the years of every kind of transport and after he died, I donated them all to a transport museum who were very grateful for them. Peter would be over the moon that people with the same interests as he had were buying his photos and making money for the museum. I still have piles of magazines for the Citroen 2CV Dolly that I keep going to get out and ring the 2CV members club to see if they will come and collect them.
Even though he never had much money, he always had a small present for me when we met on our dates, my favourites were Coty L’Aimont perfume and Contrast chocolates, I still buy a bottle of Coty L’Aimont now and it is still the same, I spray a small bunch of artificial flowers with it. I am now thinking about him and I can see him jumping off the bus in his dark suit, white shirt and slim tie with a small tie pin and wearing his Chelsea boots, my heart would thump away as he was so handsome.
Gosh how I love and miss that gorgeous man.
Love to you too.xxxxx
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To everyone here I send a big cyber hug. You’re right about Summer, the Sun & those damn dicky birds singing their happy songs just reinforces that our loved ones are gone. I look at my mum, lost without my Dad & I tell my brother it’s worse for her because Dad was the one she chose to invest her life in. On warm days he’d sit outside & if I helped with the garden, he’d watch & tell me where I was going wrong 
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Dear Cee,
That is what we did, on a lovely summers day, I would help my Peter outside into the garden in his wheelchair and oxygen tanks and I would start cutting the grass and he would say, you’ve missed a bit and I would tell him to shut up or I would cut his oxygen tubing, then we would sit down together and have a cup of tea and some cream cakes.
What dreams are made of, being together on a lovely summers day remembering when we were young and going for walks in the country holding hands and stopping at a lovely little village tea room for afternoon tea.
Gosh how I miss our life together, I have just been in the garden and cut the first two roses of the summer and put them in a cut glass vase next to his photograph, I always give him the first roses of summer and the first daffodils of spring.
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@Lonely what wonderful memories you have. I laughed at your threats to cut his oxygen tubing. My parents had similar laughs together. They’re injokes that made sense only to them lol. On your profile I noticed you met your beloved in 64 just like my parents. I keep telling my mum how lucky she was to have my Dad for so long but she says somehow it’s worse now he’s gone. She has a rose bush he planted, which is surprising because he loved digging stuff up 
I’ll tell her to cut a few. Thankyou for sharing with me. X
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Dear Cee,
We still have a row of the Queen Elizabeth roses that we planted in our garden a few months after we got married in 1967, I think the roses were for Queen Elizabeth when she opened parliament in 1967. Since Peter died I have not trimmed them and they stand at about 6 ft tall and the blooms are like saucers. I cut two of them this morning whilst they were just in bud and tonight they have totally opened up. I don’t feed, spray or prune them, I just remove the dead heads when they are done and they bloom again. They were planted at the same time as we planted the Lilac tree that I was given by a work colleague in 1959 when I was 16, we planted it in my mum and dad’s garden and then when we moved into our home together we dug up the Lilac tree, stuck it in a tin dustbin and used my dad’s car to transport it to our new home. That now stands about 10 ft tall in the corner of the garden. We have a tortoise, cockatiel, two lovebirds, goldfish and our cat buried under it. So many memories.
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I’m waiting for some white climbing roses to bloom that my husband particularly liked. I shall bring a few at a time indoors for him.
I do the same all through the summer, I have this cut glass vase I have had since we were married in 1967, it was a wedding present and it just holds two roses, it is meant for one rose but I can fit two in it. I stand them next to our wedding photograph.
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