@Sweetsound,
@NoBoDe,
@TesterWA and
@Joannie and
@Mountainbike (if you are still around!)
still can't sleep, and maybe I should tell you, my friends, what happened at this very moment 31 years ago.
My darling and I had tried to get to sleep after attending a wedding of the children of friends of friends, so not really close relatives, but at around this time of writing this, he told me to call an ambulance, he had vomited and wasn't feeling well.
Before that a bit about the wedding; the invite was for the 4th of the fourth at 4:44 - (I later found out that in Asia, the number 4 denotes 'Death')
the Theme was 'Gothic Dress' I understood it as the historic gothic so I made two wonderful costumes for us both, I picked a picture from a medieval prayer book and we both dressed as a duke and duchess, headgear were berets, mine with a peacock feather, his with just a brush of something black.
We both looked the part; only when we got to the venue, everyone else was in weird clothes, there was a witch, historic Turkish soldiers , medieval knights, some people just dressed in 'punk' style - and there was also 'Death' with a Scythe - - - and my husband made a point of talking with 'Death' asking if the blade was sharp, the answer was 'yes, sharp enough' - I was cross when he told me, 'how could anyone dress as death' maybe a former jilted lover of the bride
. . . Bride and Groom were medieval, he was a white page-boy, she was in a blood-red mini-skirt - they already had a child born to their union and I had this strange attraction for the 'life' which emanated from that beautiful child. Our group of friends were also dressed in medieval fashion, i.e. the ladies in long dresses and wimples, and one of our troupe as a court jester - and he was that for real as well.
When - after the service - we got to the restaurant, the menu was written in ominous 'death' language - it wasn't rack of lamb, it was 'skeleton of lamb' etc. - our place names were stuck in mini tombstones.
We had a good time, as we were seated with all our long-time friends and one lady said at one stage: 'do you realise if you all die I will be inheriting all your children' - and we laughed. She was/still is my friend, who also lost her husband 4 years later (who was then dressed as Robin Hood) - so a good time was had by all, except my husband didn't have his usual enthusiasm for dancing, so I let him be. On the way home, he seemed to lose his sense of direction, but we were both tired at that stage.
The upshot of it all was, that the same early morning i had to rush him off to hospital and he never came out alive.
so tomorrow morning at about 5.45 am I became a widow.
I could not remember my phone number nor my neighbour's phone number after he died, the nurse had to fetch a phone book, so they could phone my neighbours and I could be picked up
I was unable to speak for an entire day, I had a horrible nightmare the next night and I was - totally unexpectedly - a widow.
and to this day, I believe one of my daughters has not forgiven me for being the survivor of this truly wonderful, amusing, sometimes difficult but also uplifting marriage -
it was a love affair which survived some great difficulties of adjusting to a new country, making something out of nothing, bringing up children, when we were ourselves still very young, all without the support of close relatives or family - and, compared to my native country, very few social services (this has improved a lot) - and my husband (sometimes with all our help) had renovated and part-rebuilt 3 houses, on top of a regular job.
So now you know!
I'll probably have this deleted in the morning.
Thanks for being my friends
Taurisk
