The Heath

When we got to Kelling yesterday we went out straight away for a lovely walk round the Heath. I was so happy to be back. The space, the fresh air. It all looked so beautiful.
Mrs C, Mr M and the boys were due to join us today so I had to ring last night and tell Mrs C what had happened and that we unfortunately had to go home. Not a nice call to make or receive! We had been so looking forward to our holiday with them.
Miss E and Miss L were so sad. About their uncle who they loved, about me being sad, about having to go home and not seeing their friends, probably about the fact someone can just drop dead. It broke my heart again seeing them so sad. In a tiny little tin box where there was no hiding!!
I had thought about driving home last night but Mr K had just driven three hours to get there, and there’s a fault with Marshall which is making the hazards flash uncontrollably. It was bad enough on the way up in daylight but it would have been unbearable at night.
So we left this morning. I hardly slept thinking about Mr D and my mum and slamming up against the horror and unbelievableness of it.
I wanted to walk Archie round the Heath before we left. Even feeling sad it was beautiful. Amazing colours of the heather and gorse and ferns.
We stopped at McDonalds at Ely on the way home - it was what Dom would have wanted!!! - we missed breakfast by seconds so I just had tea. The others were happy to eat Big Macs, nuggets, salad and chips. At 11am!!!
The hazards started flashing not long after that so the next two hours was spent trying to ignore the annoying incessant clicking, and the flashes, waves and shouts from all the passing vehicles who thought we didn’t know they were on. Oh, My. God.
Even the neighbours popped round when we were home asking did we know the hazards were flashing!!!
We left the Little Misses at home and headed straight over to my mum and dad’s. They’d come home last night.
Mum told us what had happened and started the process of dealing with practicalities. They had to ring the coroner as it was a sudden, unexplained death but thankfully he accepted the doctor’s conclusion and there won’t need to be an autopsy. That’s such a relief. I’m not sure what the certificate will say but he had clots in his lungs and a cardiac arrest in hospital. Not Covid, he tested negative in hospital.
It was so sad talking about him but also that bittersweet feeling of remembering and talking about memories and happy times. With Dom it’s all tinged with the sadness that he’d already been dealt such a blow in his life and now this and it’s just so sad and unfair. He didn’t deserve it. Any of it. He should have died in thirty or forty years time surrounded by a wife, children and grandchildren.
But mostly we talked about how strong he was, how funny, how brave, how much he’d achieved, how much he loved and was loved.