Gone for Good.

My husband died once before, in the Spring of 1990.  Our travel agency was doing well; we had caught the beginning of the tourist boom and had, for the first time in either of our lives, some spare cash.  Teo decided he wanted a proper motor bike so he found a Honda 650 in Izmir and went up on the bus to collect it. As he was riding home past Bafa Lake, he took a twisty turn too fast, skidded on gravel and crashed off the road into a deep ditch.  I was at home making dinner when I got a phone call (land line remember - no mobiles in those days) telling me that my husband had crashed his bike and was dead.  The dinner burnt as I sat on the floor trying to catch my breath. I was searching through the address book, looking for his brother's phone number when I heard a throaty rumble outside and a scratched, torn and muddy Teo walked through the front door.   He had been helped by a farmer on a tractor to pull the bike back on to the road and was waiting roadside for a truck to pass to hitch a ride with the bike back to Izmir. He had scribbled our home number on a piece of paper and asked the farmer to ring and tell me he wouldn't be back that night.  That piece of paper had obviously passed though a few hands before the much embellished message was relayed.  As he waited by his mangled new purchase, he decided to see if it would still start and it did, so rather than going back to Izmir, he rode it all the way back to Bodrum with buckled handlebars.  

I'd like to say that I gave him a wonderful welcome when he walked though the door, but I didn't. I'm embarrassed to admit that I was furious with him for putting me though half an hour of anguish and if I'd had a stick to hand, I would probably have hit him with it. Luckily there was no stick and he survived for another 26 years  - until Friday morning.  There will be no reprieve this time, I was holding his hand when he died. He won't be walking through the door again.