About This Blog

My husband, Andrew Wade, died on September 3rd 2012, at the age of 83 years and seven months. (This photo, one of my favourites, was taken in 2005.)

Before I met him, Andrew was an investigative journalist, a film editor, and a publisher. He was known to the Australian film and TV industry of his era as Ewart Wade, the name he was christened, which he hated and eventually changed legally. During our time together he became a Reiki Master, a practitioner of various other healing modalities, and an author of children's books. (More details of the latter on my website — which used to be our website, but has been changed a little.)

I shall from time to time update one of Andrew's blogs, The Game of Life, which was intended as a basis for his autobiography. He was working on the autobiography, among other things, when he died. He never completed it, but he left a number of fragments which I'll upload to that blog. Some other pieces of writing I come across, I'll add to his A Life in Small Stones blog (subtitled 'observations') in which he looked at the world around him.

He had chronic illnesses during the time I knew him — Type 2 diabetes and its painful side-effect peripheral neuropathy, cardio-vascular disease (a triple bypass and valve replacement in 1995), and degenerative arthritis. In December 2011 he was diagnosed with 'mild to moderate' Alzheimer's Disease. Nevertheless these were all well controlled with a combination of orthodox medicine and complementary therapies, as well as his own indomitable spirit.

For most of our 20-year relationship, he was a dynamic man, full of vigour and joie-de-vivre. But, very gradually, as he aged he became less and less able to keep up his many activities and interests, and more and more dependent on me. I became his official carer. Still he maintained a good quality of life, despite several hospital visits over the years — the last two years in particular. We thought we had things pretty well worked out. Then, suddenly and rapidly it seemed, he went into decline. His body basically broke down. His end, I am glad to say, was comfortable, peaceful, pain-free, and full of love.

I chronicled details of his health issues and eventual decline in my blog, Shifting Fog. (Subtitle: 'Dwelling with Dementia'— though it turned out his experience of dementia, and therefore my experience of living with it, was unique, complicated by his physical ills.) That blog is now an archive. The beautiful commemoration ceremony we held for him is recounted in a post at my SnakyPoet personal blog.

I am beginning a new journey, into the experience of widowhood; and as I am a writer, and find journalling helpful, I am creating this new blog here. No doubt this experience too will be individual, but I hope the recounting of it may be of some benefit to others. For me, it will be an exploration.

Postscript, 9 September 2013

On this date a year ago we held Andrew's commemoration service.  After year of widowhood, which was indeed a journey of exploration, this seems a fitting date for the blog to become an archive.