Laing used to say that. Sometimes it irritated me, sometimes i smiled wryly.
But why think of it now? It was 2 years ago today, I noticed by accident when I was looking at my calendar on the phone, that Laing went into hospital for the first time, and they drained a litre of fluid off his lung. Little did I know that this was not a good sign. His breathing was much better, but eventually the fluid built up again and that’s when my unspoken concerns turned out to be correct, but worse than I thought. After all, he had given up smoking well over 25 years ago. He had had pneumonia back in the mid 90s and I thought maybe it was a recurrence of that.
Despite the obvious sad feelings I found myself happy in many ways. Probably happier than I have been for some time.We had been through a lot together in life, and the final phase was about to begin. If I had to go through this again with someone I love, I would do so. I discovered what love meant as I gave up a lot for him. To lose my dignity to keep his intact was no hardship.
I still know, that had the situation been reversed, Laing would have done for me what I had done for him. I am so pleased that he took early retirement and had a time freed from office life. The lack of a second large income was an inconvenience, but one can endure such hardships. The real tragedy for me was he had started an Open University course about computing, which he loved a lot. His ill health prevented him from finishing the course. Had he got to the end of it, he would have been smiling like the Cheshire Cat, and I would not have begrudged him one second of that smile.
