Читать книгу An Angel on My Shoulder - Theresa Cheung, Theresa Cheung - Страница 14

Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a doctor. I remember how I buzzed with excitement and adrenalin the first day I spent on the wards. But after my wife died – she was a doctor too – a part of me died. I turned up for work every morning, but it was as if I was going through the motions. I realized that although I loved my job, I loved my wife more.

We had met in the hospital canteen four years before. I had been so tired after a night shift that my breakfast tray had slipped out of my hands. Food had gone everywhere. What a mess. It was embarrassing, too, but Sarah – that was her name – just giggled. It really broke the tension. She helped me clean up and we got on instantly. After that I started to look out for her in the mornings and we’d have a quick chat and a giggle. I realized I was falling in love with her when she didn’t show up one morning and I felt out of sorts all day. The next time I saw her I asked her out and we were married 18 months later.

We’d only been married a year when she died. She was fine in the morning, but in the afternoon she kept complaining of headaches. I didn’t think much of it because when you’re a doctor headaches – along with bags under the eyes – are part of the job. She went to work as usual and then I got a phone call telling me she had died of a cerebral haemorrhage.

As a doctor I’d given people news like this on many occasions, but it’s a whole different ball game when it happens to you. For the next few days I was literally numb. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t think. I just busied myself with the funeral arrangements. I was told to take time off work, but that was the last thing I wanted. I needed to be distracted. So two weeks after the death of my wife I was back at work.

I guess it was about four months after Sarah died that denial was replaced by grief. I can’t say what the trigger was, because there wasn’t one. I was doing my rounds one morning and then it hit me like a bullet. My legs felt weak and I nearly passed out. Colleagues ushered me away to an office as I sobbed uncontrollably. My wife had been everything to me. I didn’t think I could live without her. I must have sobbed for hours that afternoon. I can’t remember much about it, but I was told that I was found curled up in a corner of the office singing to myself. I simply can’t remember it.

What I do remember is that the next two months of my life were harrowing ones. I was given a month’s leave and I spent almost all of it locked up in my flat. I don’t think I ate, but I drank far too much. Physically there was nothing wrong with me, but my heart was smashed to pieces.

Three years later I was still getting severe episodes of grief that came over me without warning but they weren’t as frequent as they had been at the beginning of my mourning. I learned to cope with them by shutting myself away and spending the rest of my life on automatic. I wouldn’t let anyone get close to me. I was rude and bitter to friends and family. I didn’t want to know. Eventually they gave up and stopped calling. The only thing that got me up in the morning was my job. To numb the pain I worked harder than ever.

One morning I was driving home after a 20-hour shift listening to the car radio when I felt my eyelids grow heavy. I was so familiar with the feeling of barely being able to keep my eyes open that it didn’t bother me. Besides, I had driven to and from work so often it was if I could do that journey on automatic. Then, as I turned a corner, I heard a clatter. It sounded like a tray clattering to the floor and I was instantly reminded of the time I met my wife. I’d been exhausted then too. Tears stung my eyes and I put my foot down on the accelerator to distract myself by driving faster. I looked in the mirror to see if there was any traffic behind me and there in the passenger seat I saw my wife as plain as day. She smiled and blinked several times and then said in the voice I knew and loved, ‘Open your eyes.’ Then she giggled and looked back at the road. I screwed up my eyes in disbelief and when I opened them up again she had gone.

Wide awake now, I put my foot on the brake to slow down, and as I did so, oncoming traffic rushed by. I realized that without Sarah’s warning I would most likely have run off the road or straight into the oncoming traffic. She had woken me up while I was asleep at the wheel and saved my life.

I’ve never told a soul about what happened to me that night on the motorway but it was a lifesaver in so many ways. I still miss Sarah terribly, but there is no doubt in my mind that she is watching over and guiding me and on that morning she saved my life. Clearly she wants me to live my life to the full. This Christmas I’ll be spending it with my brother and his family. I’m not ready for anything more yet, but one day I’m sure my heart will be ready to share again. In the meantime I feel that my experience has enriched me both as a person and as a doctor. For one thing, telling partners and relatives about the death of a loved one isn’t as painful an experience as it used to be because I know that death is not the end and that if we remember them with our hearts, the people we love never die.

Like David, Marcia, who tells us her story below, suffered deeply with grief, confusion and a sense of emptiness when she lost her only son, Jack, in an accident. And, again like David, a visit from the afterlife gave her not just strength and comfort but a new lease of life. Here’s her incredible story: