New Beginnings

In his last blog Simon spoke about the lovely week we’d had and if he’d been able to do an entry last weekend I’m sure that he would have said something similar. Sadly the blog he wrote on 31 March was his last as Simon died unexpectedly and peacefully in his sleep on Good Friday. He was curled up like a hamster. I can’t explain my feelings at the time but within a few hours I was feeling very positive. My lovely husband and best friend’s spirit was free from a body that was slowly consuming him. He’d not had to resort to using a wheelchair or having people caring for him apart from me and he’d died in the home he loved in his own bed.

It had been hard for him in recent weeks as he felt useless and very vulnerable. He was finding it so difficult to stay positive but on the day before he died we had been across to Harrogate to see our daughter and the two boys and he was happier than he’d been for a while. Eve, the boys and I went to Harrogate theatre and all enjoyed ‘Tiddler and other Tales’ while Simon stayed at home reading a book in the conservatory overlooking the back garden. When we got back he was telling us about all the birds he’d seen as we ate lunch together, and Eve got told off for throwing a piece of unwanted toast into the bin instead of feeding it to the birds.

Our Christian faith and its values have underpinned the thirty seven years Simon and I have spent together and hopefully permeated our personal relationships and working lives. If Simon had to die now what an auspicious day to die - following the Easter story certainly helped last weekend. His funeral will take place at our village church, St. Mary’s Embsay, at 11.30am next Thursday, April 19^th, followed by a green burial at a beautiful site not far away from where we live in Eastby. I’ve got him a Yorkshire wool coffin made locally which he would certainly approve of.

Grace, our youngest daughter, came home yesterday. It’s been hard for her being thousands of miles away in New York.

I intend to continue Simon’s blog for the time being as several of our friends and family have said that they would like contribute to it. I also think it may help others to know how family and friends come to terms with the loss of someone close to them.

The following poem was written by Penny, Simon’s cousin in Australia when she was coming to terms with her husband’s death. It will be read during Simon’s funeral.

A journey by train

Facing the way the train is going

Allows you to see the landscape flowing

Past the window and out of sight

Always replaced by the next scene’s sight.

Facing back the way we’ve been

Startles but there’s time to grasp the scene

And watch it fading down the line,

To let it go, the past’s grapevine.

Which seat do you choose as you journey along?

Is your focus ahead, much further on,

Or searching behind for what is past?

Perhaps now is where the best will last.

Eve, Simon and Daniel, Christmas Day 2009