Priorities for tears...
I had to inform a lady that despite our best efforts we could not revive her husband of 62 years (heart attack). They were on a holiday together as a last fling at doing their own thing together, before they were to return home and retire to the inanity of life in the nursing home they had agreed was best for their failing health.

Whilst my partner stayed with the deceased and waited for the coroner and police to arrive I sat with her and consoled her as best I could. “62 years eh? That’s a long time – you must have loved him very much” I asked. Through a torrent of tears and uncontrollable sobbing she replied “Actually we were together for 68 years all up and to be honest he was a mean and vicious bastard – always hitting me and not a gentleman in the bedroom at all. I grew to hate him.”
She went on to explain that she had hoped this last holiday away together was going to rekindle the love he used to show her when he was young. “At least I can kid myself that it was going to be a romantic holiday together” she said.

We spoke a while longer and she had truly had a horrific life at the hands of a very troubled man – some of what she told me beggared belief. Saddened as I was, I had maintained my professional composure and relative detachment as best I could.

It was whilst I was walking back to my ambulance that I failed to notice the concrete kerbing and I tripped and impacted my knee on a jagged rock, somehow also twisting my scrotum as I fell.

Now that bought the tears to my eyes.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Fri 15 Apr 2005, 13:36, Reply)