On the 13th, I was woken up by two police officers at 12:30 am who had come to tell me that my wife of eleven years had collapsed and died whilst at her sister’s. She collapsed, in the kitchen, said she couldn’t breathe, and a few minutes later was dead.
The postmortem, a few days later, said “pulmonary thromboembolism”, and the coroner said a clot from a dvt went to her heart.
I am 38. She was 46.
The funeral was yesterday, and she had wild flowers, and the wicker coffin she wanted, plus Star Wars theme. I put her with Coco the monkey she’s had since a toddler. I collect her ashes in a few weeks.
Now I’m home, surrounded by all our stuff, with our two dogs. Friends have basically moved in because I seem to exist in a haze of sleeping or drinking to cope. I have short bursts of doing what needs to be done.
I am terrified by the unreal amount of admin (although her sister’s company is dealing with probate so I don’t think there’s a great deal I need to do).
I have her ring. I drove our car back from her sister’s this morning and cried like an idiot all the way. It was the only one we managed to agree on and had been bought just before lockdown.
I can’t face walking the dogs because I’m going to have some sort of breakdown when I go on our local route and she’s not there to throw Scrabble tennis balls and play with Matilda.
And I’m angry. At who or what I have no idea. She felt breathless a few days before it happened and dismissed it as a panic attack. The leg pain she believed to be a pulled muscle. There is an entire family history of DVT!
And I keep thinking, did she know in the end? Was she scared? Ogod please don’t let her be thinking she knew she was going to die.
And now, I am crying again. I just want her back and really don’t know what to do.