I make no apologies for this post. I joined Blog U K in the first place to tell others about my website, I soon found some good friends, so I was a winner, but, as my blog is a featured blog today I may attract new visitors and friends.

This is my story.
I will start in August 2002

Forty years married, normal ups and downs of everyday life that you would expect from bringing up three sons. Life had never been very easy, but, neither had it been very hard. just a normal life and my wife and I were very content.

The boys had moved on, all, with their wives, buying their own house, all in full time work, and there are six grand children. Life was good, and we never asked for "great". There is a smudge on the horizon and it is moving in quickly. This month I arrive at my sixty fifth year.

Its o.k., we own our house, no mortgage to pay, get a part time job, just to buy the little extras, we can still look forward to our days out, garden centres, seaside, etc, Saturday evenings at the "karaoke", with the family if they can get the baby sitter, the weekend dinner at a small restaurant, and of course, our large garden that we have looked after for thirty years. Yes, retirement will be good.

The garden in particular was our place. We both selected the plants and shrubs, a long drawn out selection process, but generally we agreed on the new acquisition, then the visit to the coffee shop and on the way out, a small pack of "tablet" for the journey home. I was the gardener, Sarah, my wife, was the labourer. I cut the hedges, and Sarah picked up the clippings. Sarah did the weeding, Sarah swept the paths. I planted the new shrubs, and cut the grass. Sarah picked up the grass.

We bought a seat and sited it exactly where it would be in the evening sun, we joked about putting a plaque on it, "To spend our later days". We never did that.20 On several occasions, on arriving home from work, Sarah's first words were, somebody knocked on the door to say how lovely the garden looked.

Fridays, home from work, cup of tea, and off to the supermarket. A very normal, and, necessary thing to do, but I enjoyed doing it. We were together. On the way home collect the "fish and chips" for dinner.

As I have said, life was good. But the most important thing was that we were content with each other. I did have some little worries as I was well aware that we would be spending a lot more time together, I had heard stories about other couples finding themselves in this new situation and the home becoming a "battle ground". We had talked about this and decided that the small bedroom would be my "retreat" for hobbies, painting etc. We had planned for my retirement.

Two weeks before my retirement the bad news came. Sarah had been attending the hospital with a problem, this is not the place to go in to details, but that "problem" became, out of the blue, confirmation of cancer. Thirty sessions of chemotherapy culminated in that October meeting with the consultant and the news "six months at most".

As you have chosen to read this story I can only guess that you have been in a similar situation, or, that you know of some one that is close to you, be it, family, friends or even a neighbour who is at this time in the same situation. and I do not wish to write in any great detail of the obvious shock that the consultants words caused. It was Sarah that said, "Christmas is getting close, we had better start planning".

Early in February Sarah passed away. She had spent a week in a Hospice but, with the support of the local staff at the health centre, Sarah was in a borrowed hospital bed in her own house when the end came.

Continued on, http://www.wordscanhelp.co.uk/index.php?P=mystory

On the website, non-commercial and with no advertisements, can be found the rest of "My Story", my experience of the weeks that followed my loss, and written, hopefully to help others in that same situation.