For better or for worse

I've never thought I had much imagination. For example, when I faced my fiancee (or possibly the registrar, I forget exactly who I was facing) and vowed something about for better or for worse, I'm not sure I imagined exactly what that meant in practice. I had vague ideas about us and our families and what it meant in terms of duty to each other and to them, but the details?

I didn't imagine it meant trying to comfort my wife while, with her mother and sister in a room in Poole Hospital, we literally watched her father breath his last.

I didn't imagine it meant watching my wife's mother bury her husband of 44 years in an eight-foot grave which she knew would one day be hers too.

I didn't imagine it meant holding our three-year-old son's shirt collar to stop him falling in to the grave as I asked him to throw a handful of earth on the coffin 'to help bury Grandad', which he did, bless him.

I didn't imagine any of these details.

But what of it? Does it matter? No, it doesn't. I gave my word, and I stand by it. There is better and worse to come yet. I still can't imagine what that means in practice, although I've seen more of the possibilities now. But I've given my word and I'll stand by it. And I'll stand by my wife, for better or for worse.

RIP Gerry.