Oh when will it all be well again? When will the storm break, the thunder and lightening turn to a cleansing shower of rain? Instead I lie in her hammock in the garden she created from chaos. Oh yes it rains on me there and on her not half a mile away. I can move to our bed of thirty years, warm and dry but alone.

What is it in our evolution, genes and nurture that makes us hurt so? They say elephants grieve too, why? What is the point? What advantage is there in this catastrophic emotion we feel? Will I ever accept the terrible waste of this precious precious being I love so much?

They complained that they needed a second van to bring the flowers to the church. A tent at the west door doubled the congregation to three hundred. The postman thought my daughters were both getting married. The Mrs Bennet in her would have giggled at that! How can I reply to all those people? What can they do to bring her back?

I was lucky. Thirty years of marriage to a wondergirl, full of fun, full of life, she prodding me on and kept us all going. What ever life threw at us we were together keeping each other from faltering. Now it’s different, I am a little boy again who’s lost his mother in the crowd, who can’t remember what he is doing or where he is going. Decisions over the tiniest things are impossible to make and friends can’t find the words, just don’t know what to say; so we joke and avoid the subject and the songs of ABBA ring in my head and moths fly dangerously fast around our bedroom and tears come and go and the wound gets bigger and bigger and it hurts more and more and I worry about the children, are they safe, how will they ever come to terms with this?

I want a grandfather clock like she did, one that ticks like she did, and chimes like she did, to keep me on my toes like she did, which needs winding up like she did and needs to be cherished like she was.