Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

October 16th 2024 is a day that will be with me for the rest of my life. It was the end of my marriage.

My family.

The future we’d planned.

Rene had been in intense pain for over two years. In October 2023 it had reached a point where she stopped working to try to find answers and healing. She sold her medical practice – another far more complicated story I won’t get into here – and for a few months she rested. Physically she was getting stronger, but things are never that straightforward.

She took classes learning to sew, something she became passionate about and was developing a real gift for it.

But the pain still overshadowed her. By early September she was struggling both emotional and physical agony.

She’d seen 17 doctors in 14 months. Nobody had an answer. She’d found different issues including a tumour – benign, but agonising – in the nerve in her knee. But nothing to explain why she was falling frequently, her memory issues and anything else.

But the last was the hardest.

She went to sleep on 16th October in the afternoon and slipped away.

I’ve lost people I love before. My brother, four grandparents and my dad for starters. This is different. I wake up expecting her to be there. I fall asleep – eventually – missing the sound of her breathing beside me.

A marriage is a strange thing. It ends with heartbreak either way. Divorce or death.

The hardest things to say goodbye to are the things you don’t have a choice about.