Category Archives: Mark’s words

                                      Christmas 2016. As I’ve mentioned before Elaine loved Christmas and the presents as much as anyone else. This Christmas however things were a little subdued as we were informed earlier in the year that the cancer was ‘out’ in her system and was now officially viewed as a terminal illness. There was no timescaleContinue reading “FIRSTS and LASTS.”

At heart Elaine was a true romantic and she was particularly in love with the Pre-Raphaelite times and works of Victorian Britain. The idea of billowing, flowing romance; of rhymeless poetry penned in meagre garrets by ailing consumptives, and exquisite artworks created on canvas by renegade artists; thumbing their noses at convention and society, whileContinue reading “Offerings”

Have you ever heard silence? No I mean it, think a little have you ever actually heard silence? Not just quiet, not the library hush, but total emphatic all encompassing, silence. The type of silence that seems to have an intelligence behind it; something thinking not just an absence of noise but something purposefully creating,Continue reading “Silence.”

One of Elaine’s greatest triumphs was her Vintage at the Village Hall fairs. They started with the idea of inviting regular buyers to our home, but in typical Elaine fashion, the idea grew and grew. The fairs were a success right from the start and they soon out-grew our local village hall, so Elaine foundContinue reading “SIGNS.”

                                             Her scream wakes me up. It is the loudest most piercing scream I have ever heard, or ever want to.  It is alive with fear, and it comes from Elaine who is in the bed beside me. I cannot remember the date but it was early summertime last year. I’m wide awake in aContinue reading “A BAGEL FOR THE JOURNEY.”

Elaine was always one for getting things done and sorted well in advance, so as to be ready for the event if and when it should occur. I’m not certain she was always like this. I suspect it was the possibility, or probability, of recurring cancer that got her thinking this way. But certainly inContinue reading “LISTS”

“Elaine, no matter what where or who, I will simply love you forever.”- Mark. I guess we all have strange or weird experiences throughout our lives. Random and unexpected events which occur without any explanation or any known reason, but just happen out of the blue often during the most ordinary of days. Some hitContinue reading ““YOU’LL BE ALRIGHT.””

“I don’t want to linger. I want to go while someone still has something bad to say about me.” -ELAINE KIRSCH EDSALL.                                             On a hot Friday afternoon in July 1990, whilst I was working on the cottage where she lived, Elaine came home and as we talked announced that she wanted to go forContinue reading “HOLDING ON.”

September 2016. Elaine had been on a new chemo’ regime for a while now. It involved a hospital visit every three weeks and four main tablets to take twice a day in between, plus a few others as well. She was struggling with the tablets and seemed depressed with this treatment in general, also sheContinue reading “PLOTS AND PLANS.”

One of the longest spells Elaine had in hospital was in late ’96 early ’97, when she stayed in the Harbour Hospital at Poole for nearly two weeks. This was when she had her second mastectomy and bi-lateral reconstruction. She was, I believe, the only patient in the hospital over the New Year period atContinue reading “NEW YEAR OPERATIONS”