Post by Dave on May 30, 2011 11:43:46 GMT
It is hard to believe it was nineteen years ago I was the envy of all the Paignton Unigate milkmen. You see I had proudly gone back to the dairy one day and boasted how I had just been invited in to have a coffee with the very beautiful, sexy dark haired girl living on the Brixham Road.
Carol was 32 years old and I was 36 years old and as she was at that time a lady who kept herself very much to herself, it was very unlikely she would have ever invited her milkman in for a cup of coffee. So yes I did feel at the time I was a very lucky chap and we both soon after that first cup of coffee fell very deeply in love with each other.
For the last nine years of my life, the images and memories of Carol before she discovered she had breast cancer, somehow have got forgotten and lost as I became so engrossed in playing as big a part as I possibly could to help her in her brave fight against cancer.
Did Carol and I really have ten wonderful carefree years full of love, laughter and fun before she had breast cancer? A time in our lives we just were so thankful we found each other when we did and a time when we believed we would always be together and just grow old together.
It has been so hard trying and get my mind to go back to those days and come up with all the memories I know must be locked in my mind somewhere. It’s perfectly understandable that I’m struggling to do that as the last nine years have been so intensely wrapped up and full of every single detail about Carols fight against cancer.
I can remember every single word she said to me the day I came home from work and she showed me that lump on her breast. I also remember nearly every single day since then, all those consolations, treatments, sitting in waiting rooms and all the talks we had about just where we were with everything.
Looking at the photos I took of Carol over the last nine years, it has been so surprising to discover just how her appearance changed so many times over that period. Up until the year 2002 Carol was a lady who really had such a sexy body and the most wonderful long brown hair.
Being a man I never understood how it hurt her so much more to lose her hair far more than having her breast removed early in 2003. After having two operations she had chemo and it really did break her heart the day she looked into the mirror and saw she was completely bold.
Her hair did eventually grow back again but completely different, still, it made her happy as at last she was able to go out with her own hair on her head and not that wig she hated so much.
She lost all her hair again near the end of 2008 as she had chemo for a second time, this time as the wig they gave her really was so much better then the one they gave her before, she felt much happier wearing it out everywhere.
Her hair this time really did not come back very good at all, it was so thin and fine and the area around her crown never re grew at all. That never bothered Carol to much as once again she at least had her own hair and no longer had to wear a wig.
Up until the beginning of November 2010, if you had seen Carol out and about, you would not have guessed she had been battling breast cancer since the end of 2002. I never knew or expected what would happen to her and her beautiful body as the cancer finally started to win.
If it was so heartbreaking for me to see Carol without her clothes on, just what must it have felt like for her, yet in true Carol fashion she never made any fuss about it and just carried on trying to get on with her life as best she could.
It was equally heartbreaking watching her cry due to the terrible pain she was in and then watch her so bravely force herself up onto her feet and try and do some simple chore that once was so easy for her to do. It was even more heartbreaking just knowing how she must have been feeling knowing she was losing her battle. But once again Carol never complained and still was not prepared to just lie down and die.
In the end she knew the time had come to go into hospital knowing I believe that she would never come home again. Even when I had had to talk with her and tell her the news we both never wanted to hear, she still was not prepared to give up hope and still was fighting as hard as she could to try and stay alive.
I certainly was not prepared in anyway to witness the horrible rapid deterioration of my beautiful Carol over the last three days of her life. Those images are the very freshest in my mind and the very last ones I do have of Carol apart from the one I have when I went and saw her for the last time just a few hours before the service for her.
I do know I have to try hard to move those images back deep into my mind and replace them with ones of Carol at a time when she was so happy and frilled she had at last in her life, the man she had been looking for so long and the life she had always dreamed of.
Carol herself lost all of that the day she passed away and I do feel so sorry for her that just like me, she had found all she had been looking for and had it so cruelly taken away from her.
One thing that nothing or nobody can ever take away from Carol and I are those nineteen years we did spend together and for making me the happiest man I had ever been during those years, I will always be so very grateful she asked me in for that first cup of coffee
You will always live in my heart dear Carol and I’m so proud and honoured I was able to be in your life.
Love forever Dave
Apart from a few old tatty back and white photos of Carol as a very young girl, I’m very surprised there are no photos of Carol as a teenager or when she was in her twenties. I have spent the last few days going through all her photos albums she so lovingly put together and have scanned all the pictures I took of her back then before she learned she had breast cancer.
I hope you don’t mind me putting up just a few of these images; some have dates on them and others I have just guessed the year they might have been taken. Carol would have known when ever single photo was taken and would have been able to recall what we did that day.
1992?
1993?
1996?
1997?
1998
2000
