Spilling beans

I can talk about Cliff to people no problem but when it comes to his illness I feel choked and have hold back emotion, when it comes to how I feel I can`t really talk freely at all as I`d start blubbing and I hate crying in public, totally undignified and something to store up untill I`m on my own, that`s why I wanted someone neutral to spill the beans to. But surely this is a very public platform, yes but here I can say what I want, when I want and no-one sees the tears, red eyes and runny nose.

One of the reasons I was so angry at the medical profession was that they robbed us of a proper goodbye, they promised they could control the symptoms enough for Cliff to live a reasonable life for several months, what they didn`t mention was that this was guesswork, pure assumption. So we tried to keep our spirits up, no need to dwell on the outcome just yet, we had a bit of time. But within days we were told the end was imminent and at that point liver failure had begun. Liver failure effects, speech, memory and reasoning and although always fully conscious it was too late, my Cliffy was trapped in a body that was shutting down.

There were brief moments when he came back, I saw in his eyes but only minutes here an there just enough time for promises to be made, both of us asked for something but not the goodbye either of us would have wanted. One of the hardest things was part of me wanted his suffering to stop, for him to escape but the other didn`t want him to go, I wanted to keep him forever. He didn`t want to go and in his words "fought like a bastard", even on the morning he died, with a little help from me, he managed to get himself out of bed and onto the sofa next to it, he was a very determinned individual and he wanted to sit there not lie about in bed.

Sometimes I think about what we`d be doing if he were here, think it wasn`t meant to be like this, he was far too young to die and the years ahead feel like a prison sentence. I miss him, of course I want him back but that`s never going to happen. One of the last things I said to him before he left the house was to keep my side warm as I wouldn`t be long. I`m not suicidal, I love my kids and would never do that to them but I hope I`m not too long, I don`t really want to be here anymore, I want to be with Cliffy, the worlds very monochrome without him.