Just spoke to a lovely taxi driver who took me and all my stuff back home from the train station. He was telling me about losing his wife 2 years ago after living with her for 40 years. He clearly missed her a great deal, and talked about her fondly. I said I couldn’t imagine how that would feel to lose someone after 40 years together. He said “You’ve lived a life together, you’ve made a home, you’ve lived your only life WITH someone who is suddenly gone. You go into shock for about 12 months. My head felt like it was full of old bus tickets. I was thinking, ‘I’ll sell the house, I’ll get a flat…’ but it’s just rubbish. You don’t know what you’re doing. Everything changed. I didn’t know how to cook. My house is full of cook books now. My wife taught home economics you know, so I didn’t really need to know. I wish I’d paid more attention to her.”
We left agreeing to both try to stir white sauce more vigorously to avoid lumps.
Need to pay more attention to the people around me.
Thanks for sharing this story.