About three and a half years ago I met a girl online. Three kids with two different dads, and clearly slightly damaged, but alarm bells didn’t start to ring and the relationship developed into something pretty special. She’d had a very different upbringing to me: abusive, Lanarkshire council estate, loveless, but she was a remarkable woman who had overcome all that and become a professional ballerina. She was also very bright, attractive, great in the sack and she absolutely adored me, and I loved her back. My folks loved her too. She was ace.
Saw her for 18 months, got on well with her eldest two (who she had joint custody of) and grew very close to her youngest, a girl (who she had sole custody of).
Early January 2018 went to Malta with her for a few days. Just me and her, which we’d struggled to do as much as we’d liked because her youngest, the one she had sole custody of, was 18 months old when I met her - and the dad was in Scotland. It simply wasn’t straightforward to go for meals out, never mind weekends away, but we dealt with it.
Got back from Malta on the Saturday, stayed at mine that night and dropped her at hers the following morning. Made a loose arrangement to maybe pop round that afternoon with my son who I was taking back to university that day.
Called her in the afternoon, no reply. Didn’t think much of it. Called her after I’d dropped him off - the same. Thought about going round that evening but left it. Called again in the morning, still no reply - started to get a bit concerned and decided to go round to hers as I was off work that day.
Got to the house and her car was in the drive, which was the first time I realised something was most likely wrong, as she was supposed to be at work. Got to the house, opened the door to find utter chaos. Her three year old had been running amok, who upon seeing me told me that mummy was asleep upstairs on the floor.
Went straight upstairs and found her dead, face down on the bedroom carpet, right next to the bed. A moment that will never leave me. Called 999, who told me to try and give her CPR, which I did, but I knew it was utterly hopeless and thankfully the paramedics turned up incredibly quickly and pronounced her dead immediately. Giving CPR to a corpse with her three year old daughter hysterically crying while I did so was pretty brutal. Post-mortem said it was an acute asthma attack, but I don’t accept that. I think she’s had an arrhythmia and dropped dead on the spot; not that it really matter what the cause was. It doesn’t change anything.
In many ways my life has been a positive experience since that dreadful moment and its aftermath; certainly I’m very content and thoroughly enjoy my work and my life It would be wrong to suggest that event and the surrounding circumstances have overwhelmed my life in the last two years, because they haven’t. Finding someone so full of life, looking so lifeless makes one realise the fragility of existence and the need to make the most of every day, which I believe I’ve done. However, I think about finding her like that very often, as I do her. As I’ve said, she was fucking ace and she was right for me. I talk about her every day and miss her very much. We made each other happy and for her, happiness was something that had been missing for most of her life.
Still in touch with the kids and hope to remain so, especially the three year old (who’s now five and the spitting image of her mum). I doubt she’ll now recall that dreadful morning, but equally she probably won’t remember her mum and it’s important that I can answer as many questions she will doubtless have when she’s older. She seems largely unaffected by it now, but that will change as she get older. Hopefully I can ameliorate that a little.
I try and take comfort from the fact that she was happy at the end, and I don’t believe she suffered, but it does little to suppress the feeling that me, her and her kids have been cheated. The reality is, however, the same could happen to any of us, at any time; between heartbeats.
And one piece of advice; make sure you tell someone that you love them as often as you can; you never know if it’s the last time you'll get the chance.