It’s a weird time for me right now, which is why my blogs are a bit sporadic. We are preparing to say goodbye to my dad as he struggles through the last stages of his life.

And the truth is that whilst we know he will leave, the feelings we have for him will not. Simply put, Love Never Dies. It can’t. It’s virtually impossible.

Imagine a person you love dearly. Probably they are not right beside you as you are reading this. Does that mean you love them any less? Absolutely not.

So it follows that even if the love of your life dies, your love for them doesn’t. How you handle the loss is a different matter though.

When we lose someone we love, even to divorce or separation, what we miss so much is the way that person knew us. The way they understood us; ‘got us’ and knew what we are all about. This is irreplaceable because of their unique relationship with us. This doesn’t mean that there are not other people in our lives who loves us dearly, but they ‘get us’ in a different way.

But, if we hold on to the thought that no one will ever get us like they did, we can give ourselves extraordinary amounts of pain on top of the pain of losing them. Its like adding insult to injury.

It seems to me that it will be very hard for my mum to find her feet after being married to my dad for 54 years and never having lived on her own, but she may surprise us all.

The hardest part is that she will be alone with her thoughts a lot of the time and I know that if she lets them run riot in her head she will experience so much pain.

But in time she will come out of her shock and denial and anger and move into a place of acceptance just like everyone does. And she will discover that love never dies because it lives inside us always.

So I have no answers for her. Except to experience the sadness, let it out and never resist the tears that cleanse the painful toxins of grief;

shout and scream and take long walks by the sea and let the fresh air blow away illness and the heavy tiredness of caring for a dying man; and

keep the love in her heart and kiss his pillow at night and be grateful for a love affair that lasted half a century and will never ever die.

Love Francine