Day 1 - 7th July

The funerals and ceremonies are over. People who knew Iain have said good-bye to him and things have to move on. In my heart, though, like everyone else who has lost their beloved, there comes a momentary grief welling up and tearing my body apart. I wrote “A New Beginning” yesterday and I am trying to put myself more in the future rather in the past. However, there are things that I still want to come to terms with : how Iain died and why he had to go at 64.

So please forgive me to go back to the past for some time.

Today I’d like to write what happened on Thursday, 7^th July.

I can’t recall the exact time but I think it was around 9.30 p.m. Iain said he had a severe pain on his left upper arm. He had something similar in 2005, and I myself had an acute pain in my left elbow last summer which lasted for about a week, so we assumed the pain was caused by inflammation in his muscle. The previous day, we did Morris dancing in Barnard Castle, so we thought that was it. I wasn’t sure if he should keep the arm cold or warm. I helped him change and he laid himself in the bed quietly. At around 10.30 p.m., he went to the bathroom and coughed badly. It sounded so bad when he came back to our bedroom, I asked him if he needed a bowl in case he felt like throwing up. He immediately said “No, no, it’s okay” to that and went back to sleep. In hindsight, I think he had a minor heart attack at that time. However, as he had already had an occasional cough since I came here on 23^rd June, we again thought that he caught a cold, after getting wet in the rain on the 5^th when we joined a group called Lakeland Voices, walking up the hill in Arnside and singing various folk songs. Yes, that week was very busy. Iain had penciled in lots of programmes for us to enjoy ourselves. He really wanted to find activities that we could have fun together in the North.

posted by Edera