My darling,
As I write this, I'm sitting at your bedside in Hospital, holding your hand with rivers of tears running down my face and I'm wondering how it came to be that we're here in this living hell?
Every now and then you open your eyes and give me a weak smile, a squeeze of your hand, or sometimes you ask me for a kiss.
Each time I look at you my heart breaks some more. Your eyes are etched with pain, you look so weak and exhausted and I can see the light in you fading away, like a torch running out of battery.
You try to speak to me, but your words ramble incoherently, the effects of opiates. I can sense your fear, and I can feel your will slipping away, wishing it to be all over, yet you know that we didn't get enough time to prepare and that there were things you wanted to do and to say to make it easier for me when you are gone.
How did everything go so wrong so rapidly? What did we do to deserve all this? Why did nobody forewarn us that this might be the way things would turn out?
I'm trying so hard to be strong for you my love, but your deterioration has been so fast that I'm in total shock and I'm struggling to cope, struggling to accept what I know is coming and I know that you can sense my fear and grief. Even though you are still here it feels as though I'm in mourning for you already because such a big part of you has already gone .... my brave and strong husband, my rock on whom I lean and my very best friend.
I feel as though I've let you down, like I should have seen this coming, been more prepared, looked after you better, pushed the doctors to try harder, asked more questions.......so many things I should have done differently.
You always said that this sort of thing happening to you would be your worst nightmare and now I'm trapped inside that nightmare with you and I would give anything for somebody to come and wake us up.
I can't imagine the pain you must be in, nor the thoughts, emotions and fears that you're struggling with inside. I wish I could make it better for you but I'm completely helpless.
Your'e looking at me again now and trying to smile, just for me. "I Love You" you say, "I Love You More" I say and I kiss your hand.... It's all I can do.
I wrote this on Saturday 26th November, while trying to come to terms with the fact that I was about to lose my husband. He passed away two nights later.