When something cataclysmic happens in your life, it seems to absorb everything. I thought long and hard about whether to write about this, but in the end it just seemed really strange, and wrong, not to say anything at all.
My husband Craig died last week. He was the love of my life. He was the sort of person everyone loved, in fact: charming, kind, patient, generous, sociable. He had a kind of glamour about him, thanks in part to the fact that he was tall and handsome, but also because he never seemed to take life too seriously. He approached life with a smile, and he approached death with huge bravery.
Craig and I had many friends, dozens of whom have written to say how much they will miss him. Affection and respect for a wonderful man is the theme that runs through these letters, as well as tributes to a newspaperman who, during his long career in cut-throat Fleet Street, managed always to retain a sense of decency and kindness towards his colleagues.
Ironically, we never saw as much of these friends as we could have done. We were always promising each other that we'd socialise more, but the truth was that we were perfectly content with each other's company. Our idea of heaven was to be together.
Craig had non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He was first diagnosed with it last year, and after a course of chemotherapy, was told that he was in complete remission. This year, it came back with even more force. It affected his bone marrow and chemotherapy - at least at a level that he could tolerate - proved ineffective.
I miss Craig so much that I can hardly bear to think about it. Instead, I try to look back at our time together - so many memories of the happiest years of my life.
