First of all, this is wrong.  I am not the wordsmith, I do talking, but there we have it, the nub and the rub…….

Sadly, ours is not an unusual story but our experience was unique for us. The 14 months from June 2011 to August 2012 took us on a shocking and at times unbelievably absurd, difficult and frightening ride.  We needed all the love, support and help we could get. 

We got this completely and constantly from our families and our friends. 

We also had it from strangers and from hitherto unknown sources, the Royal Marsden, Princess Alice Hospice, Sarcoma UK and the Mulberry Centre were some of these. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. 

Linda’s cancer diagnosis took us on this profound and strange journey. In June 2012 looking back on the year since her hysterectomy she wrote:

‘So, many things have happened since then: cancer, secondary cancer, chemotherapy, side effects, getting married/committed, turning 50, battling with my fear and anxiety over being made redundant. But the overarching question I have kept returning to over the past year is one I think we all battle with from time to time, it's the question we fine tune all of our lives. Who am I?....

…A friend said that the hardest thing about being diagnosed with an incurable illness is the fear, and that once I had mastered the fear I would feel liberated. I can't say that I feel liberated, or that there's a firmly sealed box in my wardrobe throbbing with a caged sense of fear, but I'm on the road......

….So, back to my original question of who am I... I guess I'm a work in progress, working my way through a landscape I wasn't expecting to traverse. What I'm trying to be is not angry about it. Or at least appropriately angry. So maybe I'm an aspiring appropriately angry middle aged woman. AAAMAG. Or AAA!!!!!mag.”

She was right, she was ‘...a work in progress.’ Me too. And I know that we are all on that road.

I miss her every day and I am so profoundly sad and made so different by her absence. As time passes I know more and more that I am a richer and better person for having her in my life, as my lover, partner, friend and stalwart. She understood me more than I ever appreciated and gave me her love as I gave her mine. And I celebrate and cherish all of that every day.  I wouldn’t have missed my life with Linda for anything.

I am sure that every one of her  beautiful family is experiencing their own intense grief at her loss. They knew and adored her unique way of engaging with them, understanding, encouraging and loving them for the wonderful individuals that they are.

From the get go she made a huge effort to introduce us and to involve me in their life and they, in turn, reciprocated openly and with love, care and intelligence. During her life, illness and her untimely death we all gained from her sensitivity of touch. We should just have had more time together.   

In his book of short stories, Levels of Life, Julian Barnes talks about his own grief so eloquently that I am going to use his words where mine just won’t do:

"I mourn her uncomplicatedly and absolutely. This is my good luck, and also my bad luck….

"…It is true that some of my grief is self-directed - look what I have lost, look how my life has been diminished - but it is more, much more, and has been from the beginning, about her; look what she has lost, now that she has lost life.  At times it feels as if life itself is the greatest loser, the true bereaved party, because it is no longer subjected to that radiant curiosity of hers."

I love it when I hear people say how they remember Linda's smile and her great warmth; how she was the kindest and most interested person they have ever met. How she always wanted to know their story, listening with an open heart and completely focused on them. What a beautiful gift.

She was the world's best relationship broker.  She got it.  She knew exactly what to do and when.  And she was contrary, paradoxical and super smart; fixed in her opinion; never knowingly without an opinion and often unswayable...... as I know!  As a close friend of hers said to me, 'She was lovely, truly gorgeous but she wasn’t a saint that’s why we loved her.' And then there was that smile...

This glimpse into the complexities of life, illness and death that we experienced made us at times raw and in pain and at others grabbing life's pleasures. We lost touch with the middle course.  With our emotions in tatters we knew we needed dedicated external help to navigate this strange, unknown course towards a destination that we didn’t want to reach. 

The Mulberry Centre, staffed mostly by volunteers provided us with lots of this in a superbly kind and compassionate way.  Linda did some art classes – I may go so far as posting her masterpieces one day!  I had some great shiatsu and we both separately went for counselling sessions, aka blubbing sessions.

After her death they offered me bereavement counselling.  To be honest I didn’t know if I needed it, but, just to be sure I didn’t I went. It has been so fantastically beneficial that I will always treasure the support that they give. To continue to do this they need a flow of donations because, of course, they are far too useful to benefit from public funding.  

Love to you all and thanks for reading and being who you are. 

Bx

Linda’s full blog is at: http://womanwithoutacervix.blogspot.co.uk