I’ve been trying to walk more, to get exercise for my own health, and have been regularly walking up and down a long straight path which I call my ‘exercise path’.  It is in a rather deserted place, by a playing field.  Occasionally there are other people there walking dogs, but generally it is a lonely and dismal place.

I prefer it when it is sunny – I have got rather hooked on walking in winter sunshine, on cold days. Quite often though, when the weather is just dull and overcast, I find it depressing – countered only by the fact that by exercising I know I’m doing something positive for myself.

I can’t help feeling very reflective when I walk on this path.  I find myself sometimes talking as if to John, telling him what’s been happening and what my current state of mind is like.  Oddly I don’t think I ever walked there with him, so it’s not a place he would have known.

It’s three years now and I do feel very very lonely, and miss so much having someone intelligent and caring and supportive to talk to every day.

It’s true that some things get easier, that things aren’t so raw, but it’s also true that it never goes away – the loss is always there.  I will never be able to speak to him again, listen to him again. Every time I walk on the path is another memory made without him.  Every sunny, or dull, day is a day he hasn’t seen – every leaf, every cloud, every bird, something he’ll never see.

I never expected to be feeling loneliness like this again.