It had been quite a good day, in that I'd done housework - boring but useful - and helped Pam - not boring (I even made her laugh) but also useful. Wink kindly sorted out the animal feeding and I got home around five o'clock. She'd seen the car lights, so came through to tell me we were invited to visit friends tomorrow morning.
I started cooking vegetables and rice for dinner and it was all going well, when I had a brief but devastating email from a friend, to say that his wife died a few days before Christmas. I'm not a crying person nowadays, but I stood in the kitchen weeping. I'm unexpectedly devastated.
C had been friends with Tim's wife V since primary school. C and P married young - they were very open in saying that their first baby was on the way, which was the reason for their early marriage, but it lasted for nearly 60 years. C had a cancerous mole removed, many years ago, from her leg, but a lump appeared 19 years later on the same vein line in her leg. The doctors had never known a secondary cancer of that type appear, so many years later. It was treatable with pills and, though it impacted on their lives, she'd been doing okay. P also developed cancer a few years later.
Tim simply adored C. He looked on both of them as his best friends but she was on a pedestal. I once said that to them, when I'd been asked round for dinner after Tim died and, as they didn't quite know what to say, I added "until he met me, of course," which broke any awkwardness - which didn't exist for me. I understood. She was delightful.
They're holding a wake in a couple of weeks in Reading. I'm free on that day, but need to get home the same night. I tried to phone him, but it went to voicemail, so I've emailed that I'll be there.
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