A Year Ago

A Year Ago on
Friday, July 08, 2005
At last he was seeing his doctor.The headaches had been coming and going
for a month or so. Something serious was wrong. He had actually asked
for pain-killers. He never, ever took them. Typical man.
Now he accepted paracetamol without arguement.Then, it came -
the drunken confession after Jeannie's birthday garden party.
He told me he feared he was losing his mind.No, it wasn't heat stroke
or a summer virus "for wimps."It wasn't anxious regret
for his proposal of marriage.
His smiling mask of wellbeing began to dissolve before me
as he described the the reasons behind his recent aberrant behaviour.
"I think I am going mad," he said quietly."I think I am going crazy."
His mind had been playing tricks.Gaps and holes were suddenly forming
in the road. Smells and tastes appeared out of nowhere.
Irrational, "deja-vu " events assailed his senses filling him
with apprehension and nausea.Then there were the episodes
of partial blindness and tunnel vision as well as the throbbing pain in his skull.
Lately his is driving had been erratic, unsafe, even by his own estimation.
Now, whatever the cause, the consequences were becoming dangerous to others.
That could not be tolerated. He made an appointment to see his doctor.
It was Friday afternoon, the day after the London bombs.
The shock of such sudden devastationstill pervaded our mood.
It was very warm and sunny.Reluctantly, he dragged himself away
from his building project, donned a shirt over his beautiful, healthy looking tan
and went off to the surgery. Doctor B was great, cheerful, understanding and professional.
It may be nothing to worry about after all, but best to be checked by a specialist. With urgent efficiency an appointment was confirmed for Monday morning
with a neurologist at the Western
We felt disquieted all weekend, though. Why the exceptional priority
if there was no great cause for concern ? We kept very close,very quiet and still.
That would become our habit over the months of anguish that were to follow.

How I miss him in the sunshine.

"There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I dont't really mind so much, not so very much, after all. Love is not the whole of a man's life. I was happy before I ever met H. I've plenty of what are called 'resources'...One is ashamed to listen to this voicebut it seems for a little to be making out a good case. Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this 'commonsense' vanisheslike an ant in the mouth of a furnace........" C.S.Lewis

Link here to
http://mags-keepingfaith.blogspot.com