Hi Everyone,
Hope this finds you all as well as you can be.
I thought it would be nice to try and be a bit positive today, really trying hard, I know there are a lot of new names on here so some may not know our story. In short, my darling husband Pete had suffered with RA for about 5 years but had only been diagnosed just over a year, he joined nras and read daily on this forum, but never posted, never had the confidence. Sadly, last easter monday 5th April,I went out for a while and when I came back I found Pete on the bedroom floor, he had been there about 2 hours and nothing could be done. My darling had left us, so sudden but peacefully. He had been complaining about his knee for about a week, bad RA or so we thought. It turned out that he had a blood clot in his leg, which was undetectable, and it broke away and killed him, they say it was instant and that is the only thing that I was glad about.
Now 1 year has gone and we miss him and love him more everyday. We have 3 children and 3 grandchildren with another due in August, and we have helped each other through this year, sometimes not sure how, but we are here.
I thought it would be a good time to tell you about our very loving husband, dad and grandad. We met and fell in love in April 1977, again it was easter, we were engaged in the August and married the following July 1978, it was truly love at first sight for both of us. Kelly arrived in 1979, followed by Stuart in 1982 and then Andrew in 1986. Pete worked as a butcher and in 1982 he had an accident at work, which left him with a serious back injury, after several operations over 7-8 years it left him unable to work full time, but he did what he could and we enjoyed our lifewith our family. We always had family time at weekends, even as the children got older. Then they started to fly the nest, by this time Pete had started to suffer with RA symptoms but we were unable to get a diagnosis because it did not show in his blood, and it never did. This went on for 3-4 years and he was is so much pain, virtually unable to walk and could barely hold things in his hands, we demanded a second opinion and finally got diagnosed. The drugs were trial and error, as you all know, but finally they had found one that was helping and he was hoping to get back to doing what he loved the most.
About 10 years ago Pete decided to take up art. He had always liked it at school and thought he might have a go, he did all the usual beginner courses, still life sketching, landscapes etc, but abou 6 years ago he found his true love (apart from me), Wildlife. He loved painting animals, especially big cats and gorillas, he would have a go at anything and painted pet portraits for friends and family but his biggest joy were his tigers. We travelled all over to wildlife parks and zoos photographing the animals and then he would spend hours painting them. His other love was steam trains and he entered a competition at the Kent and East Sussex railway, which is local to us, the first year he got highly commended, the following year he won 1st prize and his picture was printed as their christmas card for 2009, he was so proud that his picture was in print.
He also put work in local exhibitions and usually sold a few, but in 2008 he entered 2 pieces into the Marwell International Art Exhibition at Marwll Zoo and on the preview night he sold both of them, he could not believe he had done that and he had his picture taken with Pip McGarry who is a top wildlife artist based at Marwell and he said Petes work was outstanding. So so proud. The following year 2009 he put 4 pieces in the same exhibition , he only sold 1 but he was so pleased because he wasnt expecting to sell at all because of the economic climate, he was unable to attend that year because he wasnt well enough but it gave him a lift that he had sold, again on the preview night. He had been unable to paint from about Aug 09 because his hands had got so bad, but he was having treatments for them and with the drugs was on his way back to his painting.
His biggest ambition was to exhibit at Port Lympne, which some of you know is our local wildlife park, we used to spend hours there and our favourites were the tigers, where we have a bench in Petes memory. Last easter Port lympne held their first exhibition in 10 years, Pete was so excited at being able to be part of it, he put in the last 3 pieces that he had painted, the opening night was 1st April, and Pete, myself and Stuart and his fiancee Lisa all attended, Stuart pushed Pete in his wheelchair because he was unable to walk the distance with his bad knee, we stayed for about 2 hours, met Vic Reeves who opened the exhibition and lives locally, as we took our final look around we noticed Pete had sold his baby elephant painting, he was beaming with pride, that was all he had ever wanted and he did it.
Then 4 days later he was taken from us. Life is so unfair, he had so much more to give and he was only 52 years old and he is still the love of my life, always will be.
I hope you have enjoyed learning about Pete and I havent bored you, I just thought it would be a nice tribute to him and to share with you what a wonderful, caring and talented person he was. I wrote this out a few weeks ago so that I could copy it straight on to here as I wasnt sure I could put it into words today.
I love him more each day and I will love him forever and there have been a lot of days over the last year where I have dearly wanted to be with him, but I now know that I was left here for a reason and I have to live the best life I can for both of us. It hurts but I will do it.
Wishing you all well
Lots of love
Carol XXXXX
