Patricia and I  were lucky enough to discover that quiet, intense love so often written about in those love stories that move you to tears but seldom found in real life.  I used to pray nightly that the first girl that attended Church with me would be the girl I married; well Pat was the first girl that attended Church with me. She even became an Anglican and Christianity is very much a part of our love. I love her with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life;  and now that she is in Heaven, if God choose, I shall but love her better after death. However right now, her death is like a hole in my very being, that can never be filled again, that I don’t want filled, that I’m scared to live with and scared to live without. Pat didn’t make me promise but she did crook her figure at me and order me not to follow her by my own hand

I am trying to come to terms with Pat’s death by writing my thoughts on our life together, reading and commenting on inspirational writings and her diaries.  Her diaries, you say, isn’t that an invasion of her privacy (Pat was a very private person) and her trust. No, she wrote in the October 19, 1975 entry: “Maybe when Eric reads this diary (as I hope he will — he hasn’t yet)  he will add something to clarify the situation.” Back then we used our diaries to communicate feelings we could not vocalize, ask the difficult questions, and speak our love for each other. Pat had great difficulty saying out load that she loved me.  So glad she overcame that; in the three weeks of her palliative care at home, every night before sleep, we kissed and said to each other “I love you forever.”