As the sixth anniversary of Kate’s death approaches – only just preceded by her 62nd Birthday on 4 July – I find myself reflecting once more on how different life would be had she lived.

Would we have retired together, Devonwards, as we had vaguely planned, and would our relationship have blossomed in that new environment, or else foundered?

Would she have felt cherished, supported, engaged? Would I?

Would my personal development have been stymied by her false conviction of my neurotypical tendencies? Conversely, would our son have found his direction sooner under her expert tutelage?

Above all, would we be happy?

Obviously, Kate would be happier because she would still be alive, but the intensity of that happiness would depend, in large part, on me (as well as her many friends of course).

And our son would be happier too, because his mother would still be alive – that goes without saying.

Would I be happier?

I would be oblivious of the despair that dogs the bereaved half of a couple, though the loss of both my parents would have conveyed the increasingly imminent threat of mortality. I might have escaped without clinical depression though.

I would be supported by our mutual love, our camaraderie and our badinage, built up over thirty years together. We would be a family, complete.

But I would not have been in love again – passion and romance would not have rekindled, and I would have been far less fulfilled.

Though I would have needed less fulfilment imprisoned, as I would have been, in my former, two-dimensional self.

But this complicates my reflections. For I have not simply entertained the possibility that the best years of my life lay ahead, I have now realised that possibility, though I have had to undergo a mental health crisis to get here.

I no longer miss Kate, but I do feel immense gratitude, that her death has released me to live a much fuller and richer life. Wherever she is, I hope she can live her life vicariously through me.

I strive, daily, to be worthy of her.

This shall be the undercurrent of my thoughts as I visit her tree and, later, raise a few glasses on her 62nd Birthday.

Now she’s been gone six years, I shan’t bother to invite her old friends to join this annual pilgrimage.

But they know where I’ll be and, if any want to join me, that’s just fine.

TD

June 2023