...I ran the business of HelenHowes-SewingMachines with the eminently practical and reliable and strong help of my Lovely Man John Stormes. In May this year he was taken ill very suddenly, and it looked like he might only have a few days to live. He had been having treatment for cancer, and his somewhat-reduced gut was failing badly. So, he had yet more surgery, and survived that, and I was reduced from a Fine Plan to Move the Business Together and then spend a deal more time in a leisurely fashion, to a situation of having to reclaim, manage, rework, and remove the business from one place to another. Without his help, as he had to retire at once, and with a bad back, and 6 months to get everything right and moved and sorted and out.
Reader, I lost him. We had a few more months, but he was gently slipping away during all that time, and for the last 8 weeks of his life (and after yet more bloody surgery, on his spine), he was more-or-less all the time in bed, and sinking into a diminishment and reduction-of-life that was extraordinarily hard to behold. I kept him with me, and we were much helped by the visiting nurses and doctors and palliative-care people and all and all, but it was me who got up in the night, emptied his various bags, and washed his shrinking body.. And sat with him as he gently removed himself from the world...
So, bear with me. I'm strong, and I have been mourning for so long that I'm almost done, but the house is an utter shambles, stuff is all over the place, and I'm only now beginning to get on top of the stocktaking. And there's a whole winter's worth of that, I think...
