Taking a break away from home for two weeks was a good idea. I came back ready to tackle the rearranging and eventual return to research. Four months have passed and they have been the longest months of my life perhaps but looking back the time passed very quickly with all the projects that Edward left for us to complete for him. It wasn't that he set down a list but rather they were items that he mentioned whilst we were talking and watching his favourite TV programs. The TV has hardly been on since. It surprised me that I did not know that he had such a fondness for TV shows. We were just always too busy in our nearly 55 years together and especially in the past twenty years planning trips and doing research once our children were either in their careers or preparing for them.
I started noticing that some people that we knew had passed away these past twenty years perhaps about two years ago. We do not move in a circuit of people our own age and so illness and death of people we knew did not become known to us. We just went on one trip and then planned the next and in between spent time with our family. We gardened (Ed enthusiastically and me just to help him out) and perhaps one day I will find enthusiasm for gardening I certainly like looking at the product of gardening! We walked and we biked until the last few years. Our activity level was huge really and that, in retrospect, is probably what kept Edward healthy in spite of the illness which was steadily eroding him in those early days. The first knell of alarm for me was the ultrasound technician in the fall of 2016 telling Edward that his scan was quite serious and needed immediate medical care (really she should not have told him but on the other hand the family doctor was equally alarmed). He was into the family doctor the next week and so our struggle to control this chronic condition began. That he even went for the ultrasound was the result of a quick thinking respirologist who did some tests outside of the norm for his field that pointed out a problem and this was mid 2016 and now it is mid 2021 and Edward's battle is finished but he still managed to do a lot in those five years in terms of putting material together and downsizing his enormous collection of information. I will always wonder if he could have survived longer if the COVID-19 pandemic had not taken the activity out of his life in the winter - he loved to walk and shop in the malls and stores and we did that several times a day. Walking around the house, biking on a stationary bike and using the treadmill were just not enough continuous exercise as he simply did not enjoy the house walking, biking or treadmill particularly. We miss him and always will but he is at peace now in God's arms.
There is still so much to do - Sympathy cards to be thanked, switching over accounts and planning where we will be buried. My daughters said do not worry about that we will come up with a solution one of these days and so I return to my quiet life and let my children manage. Really management of death is for the living. But I shall continue to organize so that there is little to do when God calls me home.
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