**Diary Entry**
I was with him until his very last breath. But his children cast me out like a stranger.
When I met Edward, I was already 56. He was a widower, and I was a divorced woman with a bruised heart and faded dreams. Life had been unkind to us both, and all we sought was warmththe quiet, steady kind, free from grand promises or pretence.
We spent eleven years together. Peaceful years, filled with simple joys: lazy breakfasts, morning trips to the market, tea by the fireplace. We never argued or felt the need to explain ourselveswe just *were*. His grown children were polite but distant. I never pushed, never interferedthey were his family, not mine.
Then the doctors diagnosed Edward with cancer. A merciless disease, leaving no hope. And so I became his eyes, his hands, his breath. I lifted him when his legs failed, fed him, dressed his wounds, and stroked his forehead when the pain grew unbearable. The nurses would say, “You’re remarkable. Even family couldnt bear this.” But it wasn’t a featI loved him.
One night, he squeezed my hand and whispered, *”Thank you my love.”*
By morning, he was gone.
The funeral was simple, arranged entirely by his children. I was allowed to attend, nothing more. No one offered me words of thanks or comfort. I hadnt expected any. The house we shared was *ours*, but Edward had never written a will leaving me his half. Still, hed always assured me, *”Its all settled. They know you belong here.”*
A week later, the solicitor called. Everythingdown to the last pennywent to the children. My name was nowhere.
*”But we lived together for eleven years,”* I murmured.
*”I understand,”* he said curtly. *”But legally, you dont exist.”*
Soon after, they appeared at my door. His eldest daughter, face cold as stone, said bluntly, *”Dads gone. Youre not needed anymore. Youve a week to leave.”*
I was numb. My life was in that housethe books I read aloud to him, the flowers we planted, his favourite mug (the one hed only use if *I* poured the tea), even my own cracked cup hed carefully glued together. All of it stayed behind a door I was told to shut forever.
I rented a tiny room in a shared flat. Started cleaning housesnot for money, but to keep from losing my mind. The terrifying part wasnt the lonelinessit was the *erasure*. As if Id never existed. Just a shadow in a strangers home one where Id once been light.
But I *was* real. I loved. I held his hand through the worst. I was there when he left.
Yet the world runs on paperwork. On names, blood, wills. But some things dont appear in legal documentsthe warmth, the care, the loyalty. If just *one* of them had looked at me by his coffin and seen not “some woman,” but the one who stood by their father perhaps things wouldve been different.
To those with family, who lose and remainremember: what matters isnt just whats written on paper. Its *who* stayed by the sickbed, who didnt walk away, who held on when everything crumbled. *Thats* family.
I bear no grudge. The memories are enough. Edward said, *”Thank you, my love.”* And in those wordseverything remains.
