I hope I didn’t distress you too much...! I don’t do FB... but I send you hugs.

@Marionville Thanks! The site was started 2-1/2 months before she died. There are now 308 members. Maybe half I don't know. What is clearly shown is how loved she was. I was lucky enough to have been married to the kindest person I ever got to know. She had her bad points as do we all, but her love shone through.

@rogerbenham. You have been lucky...I was too. My husband Peter was the love of my life, although he’s been gone now for 9 years..I know I will never meet anyone like him...and have never even tried looking. Let the fact she had so many friends give comfort to you...and like me you have a lifetime of happy memories to cherish too...try to focus on these positive thoughts whenever sadness crowds in around you.

@Marionville I have found that not trying to forget her faults or our disagreements helps me with the reality of the loss. I've been wading through her stuff and will be likely for another year (good incentive to get my stuff in order) and have had to face her failings which I had greatly downplayed when she was beside me. We never carried disagreements through to the next day. She looked after me after cancer 9 years ago and cardiac arrest three years ago. I looked after her through lung cancer (thankfully that was so quick - horrifying at the same time).
Our favourite thing was walking in woodland. For me a substitute for the beechwoods of Buckinghamshire and for her the mixed maple and hardwoods of Ontario. One is not so much lonely as acutely aware of absence and for me her company. Remember the line in "The Family Way" - "when I look up there thou ist and when thee looks up here I am". That really is what it is all about.