Death, Grief & Remembrance

Today is the 10th anniversary of the death of my husband David. For some reason, known only to him, he was up a ladder looking at the roof of the house. The ladder slipped & he fell onto concrete. His legs were trapped in the ladder & he hit his head. I heard him fall & screamed for help. He was airlifted to hospital & died on the 13th day on life support in intensive care. I was waiting for the operating theatre to be free for them to harvest his organs, but he died naturally before they could do that. It was our 43rd wedding anniversary. He was 67.

He was a really nice man - That sounds so bland. He cared about his family & friends. He loved the outdoors & conservation. Walking was the main thing we enjoyed doing together & most of our holidays involved us walking in quite remote places. He was concerned about what we were doing to the world even then.

He was very unassuming & completely lacked any sense of self importance. He was shy & did not enjoy big social occasions. Social chit chat did not come easily & he thought it a superficial waste of time. He was self effacing & self contained, in a way quite introverted.

We were polar opposites in many ways. But it worked, goodness knows why. I suppose we complimented eachother. He had an inner strength & I always felt I could do anything as long as he was there. So I dragged him to many places on our worldwide travels knowing I would be safe - Yemen, Libya, India...We both loved visiting "rubble factories" - (ancient archaeological sites to most people).

He was never ambitious in his professional life. He was conscientious, though. He worked to live, rather than lived to work. He worked for years for the CAA. Before he took early retirement he ran a team working on the software for the new air traffic control centre at Swanwick, which was bizarre because he was completely disinterested in computers. Fortunately the team knew what they were doing!

Grief is a strange thing. Grief doesn't ever go away. It does stop screaming. It whispers in your ear instead. It is true that you remember a loved one virtually every day because tiny things prompt a memory. But that's OK. Someone you really loved is worth remembering. That's how we live forever - in the memories of those who loved us. It's the only life after death worth having.