I woke the morning after my conversation with Kristen
feeling tired and out-of-sorts. I had been up three times in the night worrying
about whether I had damaged my relationship with her. I knew that what I was
planning to do must be distressing her terribly, but I had a life to
lead too. I switched on my bedside lamp and looked at my alarm clock.
It was 6:13 a.m. I had had less than three hours sleep.
Darkness had started to bother me. It seemed to accentuate
and exaggerate my worries and fears, but it wasn’t only the darkness – or the
damage I might have done to my relationship with Kristen – that was bothering
me, it was also my feeling of impending doom. It was hanging over me like a
shroud. I had initially put it down to Liz’s forthcoming demise, but I had
recently begun to think it might not be that simple.
Without warning, depression hit me. It was like I had fallen into a deep dark pit. Sometimes, it would wash over me in waves, like
waves on a seashore, but not this time. This time it was heavy duty. My mind turned to the pills in the nightstand beside
me. I brushed the thought aside, as I had so many times before recently. Too
many people were relying on me.
I got out of bed to make myself some more tea. It would be
coming out of my ears soon. My bedclothes looked like a herd of elephants had
trampled through them. In the kitchen, I switched on the kettle, and the radio.
Music and voices helped. They made me feel less alone.
I opened the blinds in my living room and a seagull drifted
past, startling me. There was a pile of grey and white feathers on the lawn. A
fox must have eaten a wood pigeon in the night. There were plenty of foxes
around, and even more wood pigeons. Now there was one less wood pigeon.
I made my tea and carried it through into the lounge. As I
sipped it, I thought of what to do during the day. I thought I’d go down to the
beach after I’d seen Liz. There were always people on the beach. I didn’t feel
as lonely when there were people around, even if I wasn’t actually talking to
them.
On a whim, I phoned the care home. I was horrified to hear that Liz had fallen off her commode and banged her
head. Jerry, the charge nurse, said they had thought of calling me but it had
happened in the early hours and they hadn’t wanted to disturb me, especially as
Liz was taking it all in good part. Jerry said she would probably have a lump
the size of on egg on her forehead but that she was sitting up in bed having a
cup of tea, and seemed a lot less concerned about it than the nursing staff.
Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true
story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of
my wife. Now an Amazon Kindle book. www.amazon.com
Twitter: Maximillian19
FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissed.com
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