Because You Were There

Non-Fiction

Pages: 56 Ratings:

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“Reminders of you are everywhere, but you are nowhere, and this absence of you is forever.”

As the finality and aloneness of her husband’s death started to dawn, Sally realised the only person who would have understood her feelings of loss was him. In the silent spaces that were left behind, she started to write to him, aware of the absurdity of what she was doing. Her letters, intended only for them, stopped as the process of recovery began, but sometime later she shared them with her new partner. He felt that the letters provide a rare, at times brutally raw and honest chronicle of the early stages of grief that could be of help to others still lost in the early stages of bereavement when a return to a full life seems impossible.

She hopes that by publishing her letters, she will provide hope and support to others struggling through the grieving process.

This second edition benefits from a postscript in which the author looks back on the process through the lens of the twelve years that have elapsed.

Sally Blythe is a psychologist and author who spent more than twenty-five years working alongside her late husband developing a method of assessment and intervention to help children who are under-achieving.

As both colleague and spouse, theirs was an extraordinary relationship, sometimes described by Sally as the most unlikely but remarkably successful love affair that lasted throughout their life together.

Some years after the husband’s death she moved to North Wales where she continues to write and work. She has three adult children from a former marriage and seven grandchildren.