So this time last year I realised that in 2012, this blog would turn ten years old and today is the big day, as my first post was published on 7 March 2002. Of course, that was two blog versions ago, both of which are still running though not being updated and links to which still work. In fact, I still need to upgrade quite a few entries on those to the “new” Wis[s]e Words, even three years after switching…
Today would be a happy occasion, if not for the depressing fact that today is also exactly four months since Sandra died and of course my thoughs are more with her than with the blog, as they always are. I can sometimes stop thinking about her, especially at work when I keep myself busy, but barely an hour can go by without me being reminded of her. Sometimes this is more difficult than at other times. For example, last Sunday I was listening to the Archers omnibus on Radio 4, a fixed part of my Sunday morning routine: get up during the morning service, get showered and dressed, then make coffee and breakfast while listening to broadcasting house, finally read the newspapers and blogs and all about how Aston Villa once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory while listening with half an ear to The Archers. I can’t help it, you’re obliged to as a Radio 4 listener and besides Sandra got my addicted to it.
But this week’s omnibus hit me hard, because it included Tony Archer’s heart attack, which made me think of Sandra immediately. Not the heart attack itself, which fortunately she never had, but the circumstances surrounding it. His son Tom had had a bit of a row with him and went back to talk it out again, finding him on the floor and confused and not knowing what was happening, just that he was in pain, breathing rapidly. There have been a number of times that I had to find Sandra like that, having to wait for the ambulance, having to ride with the ambulance to the hospital, knowing that things had gotten bad again.
Which isn’t meant as a plea for sympathy, it’s just one of those things I have to deal with, “flashbacks” like that. At the time when you had to deal with a situation like that, you have no choice but to keep it together, not to think too much about it. And since most of the last two years have been either emergencies or attempts to recover from setbacks, I haven’t had much time to think it all over, which is now coming back to bite me. Now I’ve got too much time to think and wonder about what to do with the rest of my life, other than going to work, blog, read and watch tv…
On a lighter note, Sandra would’ve screamed and screamed reading this story, as she was not fond of spiders. I really shouldn’t have teased her with it as much as I did.
