Today I went down to the sea with my current project. I didn’t do much work on it. I stared at the waves a lot. Things are not the same.
Two days ago K died following a massive heart attack. This comes only six weeks after the death of my mother. Once again I find myself writing here as therapy so please forgive the self indulgence and move on to something else if you need to.
Let me tell you about Kevin (I rarely used full names on here to preserve people’s anonymity so always referred to him on the blog as K). We’d been married for 37 years. He was my soulmate, my best friend, my lover, the father of our two amazing children and my carer too. My disability meant he did more for me practically than most partners have to.
We met at University. We were both on the Entertainments Committee that organised the gigs and discos in the Students Union. I was an undergraduate, he had finished a postgraduate course the year before and came up at weekends to work on the concerts with his Ents friends. That’s where our shared love of live music came from.
We were both science and nature nerds. When we first got together and he was walking me home one night, the entire conversation was about worms. It was quite a revelation to actually meet someone who knew the difference between a platyhelminth and an annelid (that’s a flatworm and a segmented worm, so now you know too).
We both worked in local government. We’ve had four homes over the years, in Lancashire and Northumberland. We have a son and a daughter, now grown up. Being a good father was always so important to Kevin. He always did his best for them both.
Since we both retired we’d developed new lives for ourselves that combined time together and separate interests, in his case fishing, geology, trail hunting and walking, with Buddy the Labrador. More recently , as a proud graduate of Newcastle University he’d become involved with the Alumni Network. He always gave 100% to everything he did.
Of course he wasn’t perfect. He had strong opinions that he wasn’t afraid to share, often online. We used to joke that he’d gone seamlessly from angry young man to grumpy old man.
Right now I’m grieving. I’m angry at the unfairness of it all. I’m feeling this massive hole in my life and I don’t know what the future will look like. Our two children are somehow managing to look after me on top of their own grief. I’m immensely proud of them and I know their dad would be too. I’m also overwhelmed by the love and support of family and friends.
I’m also grateful. I was so lucky to have this wonderful man in my life for 40 years and for the love we shared. He completed me. Kevin will always be in my heart.
Stitches by the Sea 