Germany

I don't think of one single, solitary happy memory when I hear that word.

Not one.

For me, it brings it all flooding back in glorious technicolor.

It started yesterday when I walked to The Mount with Mum and my niece.

There were tourists of various nationalities all over the causeway but it was the Germans that I really heard.

The accent makes me feel sick.

It transports me back to April and May last year.

Every day for a month, walking to Critical Care, speaking into the entry-phone "Ich bin John Ellis's husband".

Just saying it in my head now makes me cry.

I am and always will be gloriously, ridiculously happy to be John Ellis's husband, I was truly lucky. 

And there it is....'was'.

The corridor to Critical Care....

When I flew out to join John on 20th April 2012, I didn't expect to be there for a month.

I honestly thought I'd be there for a few days and he'd be coming home with me.

By the time I arrived he'd had a heart and lung by-pass (the first of two in 24 hours!), he was in a coma and he was extremely critical.

The first people I contacted were the boys, Henry and James, they really needed to come and join their Dad.

This wasn't what I expected.

I was told it was bad, but you know how sometimes you think everyone is blowing it out of proportion? That's honestly what I thought (which filled me with guilt once I knew the truth!)......because they care they're getting caught up in the drama but he'll be fine.

He wasn't fine.

He was never going to be fine....ever again.

The hotel....

I didn't take toiletries when I flew out because I thought I'd share John's.

Since Germany, all I can use is Dove for Men.

It's what John was using at the time.

I have a lot of it in the bathroom.

A LOT OF IT.

I can't stop buying it (but bizarrely, only if it's on offer!).

If you go in my bathroom you'd think I'd been shop-lifting!!!

It smells of John but it also smells of Germany, of my hotel room.

I should change it but I can't.

Nor do I want to.

Not yet.

Part of the collection....!

When John was ill and we all thought he was coming home, I said to myself and to Mag, John's sister, that one day we would go back.

John and I would return so that the nurses in the CCU could meet him and hear his voice, his laugh and experience his wonderful, infectious personality.

Well, that's not going to happen now is it?!

And, I won't be going back.

Bremen is a nice enough place.

But it won't be seeing me again.

In my eyes it robbed me of my Husband, it took the Love of my Life from me.

I will never, ever, EVER forgive Bremen for that.

The Hospital pond...

I am not, in any way, deliberately thinking about Germany.

In fact, I don't fucking well want to think about Gemany.

However, my mind is full of it.

So much is coming back that I had buried deep.

The people that joined me there.....Henry, James, Emma, Mag, Adrian, Mark, Heather, David and Lesley.

So many moments, both funny and very, very sad.

The daily emails to approximately 70 people giving them updates on John's progress...or lack of.

Those at home who helped out enormously, including Kay, Jim, Sharon, Nick, Alan, Jorge, Debbie, the list is endless as is my thanks and appreciation.

I could go on, but I won't.

I'm sobbing like a girl.

I miss John.

I miss him more than I can ever explain.

We all miss John.

We were all so very, VERY lucky to have him in our lives, even if it wasn't for as long as we would have liked!

I played this every single night that I was in Bremen with John.