His Last Walk

 His Last Walk

Dear friends  - on January night, 2013 my beloved life partner and soul mate of 21 years, Andy, left this earth forever. I had been keeping a close watch on him at the cottage for six days. He had gone into a downward spiral of stress and depression which eventually tipped him over the edge. On the day he was signed off sick from work, he began saying strange things and I looked into his eyes: it was not my Andy any more. It was another person, a tortured soul who was convinced that because he could not do his job properly, that he would be sacked and we would lose the cottage, all within two weeks. Now of course, this sounds irrational, but then, he was suffering from paranoid delusions, tortured scenarios of our imagined eviction and thought that the world was conspiring against him. He believed - this great hearted man, who pushed himself beyond endurance - that he was a failure and it tore my heart in two to hear him say this. He was anything but.

Many years ago, when we were at the seaside, he said that one day he would walk into the sea and just keep walking. And more recently, when we were walking through the woods in the snow, he said that if he had to 'go', he would like to sit under a tree in the snow and let hypothermia take him. Because (he said) that way, you just get an illusion of being warm and sleepy, whereas in fact, you are freezing to death. It is an easier way to go.

It was a nightmarish six days of trying to look after my darling, as he tormented himself and he had been unhappy for some time before. The last year, with so many changes - for a man who hated change - was too much for him. It had not been a happy year for him; it seemed to me that every week brought a new thing to bring him down and add to his load. And he did not deserve that.

On the night he left me forever, it was a freezing, snowy Shropshire night. I had seen him go into the kitchen minutes before and when I went to ask if he wanted to eat, I saw the back doors wide open and I knew what he intended to do. I ran into the garden, in the dark, screaming across the countryside that I loved him, and to come back to me. But there was no answer except the thin wind  blowing across the snow.

He walked out across the back fields, in nothing but day clothes and without boots. His disappearance was a matter of minutes and it was not until  daylight the next morning that we found his footprints on a side wall, out of obvious sight. The Shropshire police put out a full team that night, and a new team in the morning. There were dogs, Search and Rescue and the Mountain Rescue team. They did everything they could to find my sweetheart, but I knew from the start that he had gone to end his tortured thoughts.
'I just can't do this any more' was a phrase he repeated time and time again.

He was found a couple of miles away, the next day, in a small river two miles from here. He had walked across country - by which time he must have been completely frozen - and I think (I hope) that in the end it was a gentle way to go. A falling asleep in icy running water, surrounded by the countryside he loved. My beautiful Nature Boy, with nature at the very end, surrounded by trees. Going in both the ways he had mentioned before. 

I am slowly picking my life up and trying to get back to work. Because ironically, now that he is gone, the future of our cottage may very well be in jeopardy and I must work as hard as I can to earn a proper living. But oh, my friends - it is as if part of me has been ripped out. I can take some small comfort knowing that shortly before he vanished, I put my arms around him and kissed the top of his head. I told him I loved him, and he told me that he loved me. The one thing he could still say with clarity. 

 

Dear Lord, the suffering is unbearable at times but I am blessed with such wonderful friends here and around the world and they are looking after me here and afar. Without that, I fear what I would do. But the real Andy, who promised me he would never 'do anything stupid' - because he knew he was all I really had - would not want that. So I must go on, for him, for my friends and bear this agonising grief as best I can. For Andy. Forever.  

 

Andy Macauley April 23 1971 - January 21 2013