'I am here for you'

I cleared out rooms of Dig's things.

Hoarding temperament? Yes. Much.

I wonder if we'd sold this house (been here 30 years). I wonder a) How he would have moved all that shit and b) Who would have said, 'No problem! Stack your boxes in the bathroom!'

Of course, when you love someone, you turn a blind eye to 18 boxes of cables going back 30 years stacked in a bathroom. (Incidentally, the bathroom was made unusable mostly thanks to 18 boxes of cables stacked next to tool shelves propped against a wall.)

And then I stayed through a belly full of more than everything else.

Once, Dig said to me, 'Only you could love me'. I replied, 'No, you are a lovely person'. But I think, in truth, only I could have loved him with the huge scope that I did. I gave thirty years of range and depth, possibilities and impossibilities, grudges and resentments, forgivenesses and tolerances. Hatred and love, hope and despair. There were times when I laughed so much in his company the world turned round us. There were times when we both would have done away with that spinning wheel in the snap of a finger. We didn't. Brief Encounter? The truth is, the responsibility of giving up his daughters, home and family would have been too great a consequence to commit.

Then I sat 24 hours, every day, 10 days at the hospice, by Dig's side, breathing the last seconds of life before us.

Later, when it is all done, all gone, I catch up with messages on his phone. Some are from family, some are from groupies; there were star-struck types, parasitic types, flatterers and the career advancers that Dig collected. One message read, 'I'm here for you'. I reward our family with a hollow laugh. Yes, you are. In your synthetic Wechat/WhatsApp landscapes, you do indeed slip away with all your final nothingness, into the shallow depths of a plastic screen.

Thirty years got me the truth of my public vows. I never betrayed them. My wedding ring was made stronger than any transitory sparkle bought in temporary fits. My truth is, I fell in love quickly and I never lost that love. Through all the good and bad, regardless of others, I wanted my husband: no one else came close. My desire was thwarted, often by others more manipulative than me; sometimes by my husband who allowed himself to be easily led. But when I could not have him by me, I was in sorrow and loss. His absence gave me my reason for this record to exist. This is my truth.

For my vows, I was here when we lived on virtually nothing. I was here as a partner in inspiration and aspiration when we created our company and brought home contracts. I was here through health; I was here for sickness. I never left. I stayed. I loved. Nights, weeks, months of constant watchfulness, sleeping on floors besides beds, driving at midnight and at 3am backwards and forwards to hospitals. Thirty years brought me the care of vomit, urine and faeces. Thirty years threw me the harrowing knowledge that Dig's judgement was fragmenting under addictive painkillers, where he would never know the problem of withdrawal. Thirty years got me dealing with his stories, confessions and truths. Thirty years got me head, heart, family. Thirty years got me the past and the future; being here fully, totally, physically, immersively, viscerally, with every emotion wrung from me, holding the last hand to life and the true, incontrovertible right to claim, 'I am here for you'.

I am here.

Love in the time of chemotherapy

Tick, tick, tick, punch, cry

Yes, for in the wake of Dig's death, I have done form-fillings: legal/medical/registration/cremation/certification. I have called insurance and DWP. I have braved VAT and corporate liabilities. Paid HMRC. Taken thirty-plus bags of recycling to the tip. (This expedites Plan A: rent part of the house to someone who can afford it.) Visited accountant, four times, once with minor breakdown (me, not them). Scoured bank accounts for direct debits, standing orders, subscriptions, annual charges. Dumped phone contracts, decommitted from expenses, rang up people to ask, 'Why am I paying you?'

Yet to do: press destruct on the economic relationship with Arse Hong Kong.

I boasted about my progress on this March of the Dead to the woman at the bank. She looked at me warily and said, 'You have to have time to grieve'. I answered, 'My outgoings are steaming off the racetrack like a Tesla Roadster. My forecasted income is a toddler push-bike with a flat back tyre. Grieving this week equals 1.5K, so let's keep going through the bank account, please.'

It might sound harsh to the sensitive ear, but it is the cold hard edge of a morning in my land, true whether it dents the sensibilities of an Account Advisor or not. Dig lived his life with a casual approach to small items, like a few hundred for hotel, first-class lounge access and airfares - and I question his judgement in later years (I hope no handbags were actually purchased) - but as in so many areas of life, I pick up the result. Just as well I am never going to be defeated and will always stand up fighting.

Which reminds me. I am not sleeping. For two weeks. Three hours worst, six hours best. I am powered by adrenalin, waking at 3am swinging punches like a drunk from a bar, conjuring in the darkness the face of someone I'd like to see bloodied and toothless, before I twist their neck to a satisfying snap. Then I push them down in a sea of mud and set a never-sleeping monster on them to make sure they never emerge to further touch my life. (This could be a metaphor or not and I could be hallucinating again. Not sure.)

But then the day. And I am reminded of the crystal clear sparkling wonderful brightness of people I know; people who leave flowers. People who quietly bring a hamper of loveliness and goodness. People who write a line or a word, people who send blessings in an envelope, who listen to me rave and finger jab, who are there and who care, ready with their loves and loyalties and gentleness, that I cry, touched more by their generosities than for any death or loss, but for kindness. Kindness given to me so readily and freely and with such open-heartedness honesty that I feel strengthened to face the world where I know there is everything I value, ahead.

What I learned

The last few weeks have been gruelling. Each hour came upon me with its own special form of gruel. Spiced, on occasion, by an extra serve of pain delivered straight to the gut in a skewer-grinding way. None of that for public consumption.

But I have learned this! That my children fill me with admiration. I have deep respect for them. They are remarkable people, made deeply resonant by experience. The world is a better place because they are in it. And I am indebted to them for their love, and their loyalty.