I was watching the TV one day and watched I'm A Celebrity contestant Esther Rantzen cry as she remembered her late husband and it brought back some very vivid feelings and memories. To begin with, I went from raging misery to total numbness, which was just as well as there was so much to be done. It was only when the drama was over,the future stretched endlessly ahead that the real widowhood began. The death takes longer than you might think to sink in - sink in at all levels, that is. For a long time I thought, subconsciously, that I only had to get through all this and things would return to normal. Little did I know that nothing would ever be normal again,I found myself - still do, occasionally - thinking that Gerry would have approved or disapproved of somethings I had done. So life goes on. In some ways, it stays the same. I haven't moved, I'm still at home and we never did breakfast together even though we had been home together for nearly 15 years.We lost one of our dogs "Honey" (a golden Cockerspaniel) 6 weeks before gerry died with a heart defect The remaining dog "Ebbie" has reluctantly realised I am now all she's got and is as demanding as ever - but she is a help,she prevent the bleakness of a dark and empty house. I see a fair amount of my son, Kevin and the boys Josh and Luka my grandsons: and my daughter Karen,and the girls, Rossan,Regan and raeven and Sharon Gerry's daughter and Paige and Adam our grandchildren they have all been a great support. Real friends are a godsend,and not just as a shoulder to cry on. Even from the earliest days they can distract you, do things with you or at least pour the alcohol without which, I don't see how anyone gets through this. And they don't mouth the false comforts, the usual platitudes, that can annoy one so. I particularly disliked people saying 'You'll get over it', or " it will get easier " as if it was an illness or a busted love affair. I groan too, when someone say's: I know how you feel when my brother died . or. . when my aunt died. ect. .' I wanted to snarl: 'It isn't the same at all.' When my father died, years before Gerry, I didn't seem to feel the grief so much: although very painful...but maybe the grief didn't have a chance to take hold because Gerry and the children were here with me with their warmth and kindness and support, and with a husband and children at home there was always so much to do. Being a widow is not helped by also being older. It's a relief, in a way, that my sagging curves no longer have an audience,but being on my own makes the prospect of being really ill and frail alarming.When I had breast cancer there was Gerry to drive me to hospital and help me dress if I did'nt feel well he would make me go to bed and bring me tea every hour on the hour,and loved to feed me. Losing your husband has two separate aspects: there's missing the actual man, your lover, his quirks, his kindness, his thinking. But marriage is also the water in which you swim, the land you live in: the habits, assumptions you share about the future, about what's funny or deplorable, about the way the house is run or should be. What some people called a whole civilisation, a culture, a shared language of a groan or a touch'. You don't 'get over' the man, though you do after a while get over the death; but you have to learn to live in another country in which you're an unwilling refugee...... Some widows go to Bingo,or take up knitting or become coach potatoes I tried that and cried all over the cushions. Some are absorbed by their grandchildren, but I don't know which of us would dislike that more, them or me, adorable though they are. I am luckier than most, I know: I don't live at the end of a muddy lane two miles from anywhere, I'm not broke and I've friends to do things with. But I have plenty of people to do things with - I just have no one to do nothing with. There are widows who can find nothing to cheer them at all, but for most of us, after a time, there are a few upsides - a lifeline to be grabbed at (and I don't just mean wardrobe space). So much depends on whether you enjoy doing things on your own. Two-and-a-half months after Gerry died, I found myself sitting around for a long afternoon in the garden, sitting for the odd coffee or drink and I suddenly thought: when I was young this was one of my favourite things - and I haven't done it for alone for decades. It was some sort of a milestone. I had hoped that after a while the good memories would drive out the ghastly last weeks of Gerry's life, and to an extent they did, but they never will completely. What does happen is that the good memories become a source of pleasure and comfort, tinged with the same ghastly ache, the same regret one feels about having once been young, of the unreturning years when I first met and first loved the man. A phrase can bring them back,or a song or a smell. In my case, sorry about this, it's the smell of cigarette smoke on a cold day. It brings back the garden and our home where we were always happiest, when they wanted him to go to hospital to make him "feel better" he refused to leave his home,and and so he stayed with me until he died and it is now where I keep Gerry's ashes, it was his wish to remain in the place he built and loved above all eles, We had a wonderful day in the garden after Gerry died it was a celebration of his life it was his birthday 16th June 2008 he would have been 66 . It was a lovely day, bright and sunny but I was being held up by the whisky. We played his favourite music and talked about the things he used to do, family and friends kept me afloat. We passed round Gerry's favorite cake that I had baked that day and drank Whisky, we recalled good moments on the christmas before, happy memories of Gerry. Each of us let off red star shaped ballons into the sky with his name on them, into the gentle wind and they became nothing, then they were gone. I know that no matter how hard I try to move on there's too much of you embeded in me, so I just have to resign myself that we were not just two people sharing each others lives,but somewhere in the 28 years together we became one person, and although I am not wishing my life over just yet I wont feel complete until we are together once again. -------------- I feel a warmth around me like your presence is so near,And I close my eyes to visualize your face when you were here.