Thanks everyone, I am pleased with how the tattoo turned out(I may have more planned-nowt else to do *que maniacal laughter!) The words are indeed beautiful, they are his, in his handwriting, taken from a letter he wrote to me & hid in my hand luggage the first time I visited....but I'm getting ahead of myself....
I did promise to return & tell our 'story' so I hope you're sitting comfortably.....this is the short version....some day I may write a book...
My husband, Ryan, died August 20th, of cancer, he was only 41.
We started talking, over the internet back in 2014, we fell in love, & spent every possible moment 'together'-whilst being 3500 miles apart, by the power of Skype, we cooked on Skype, ate on Skype, watched movies on Skype, even slept on Skype!
In May 2015 he visited me in Scotland for 1 whole week, we holidayed up on a tiny island in the Outer Hebrides, we even took my dog, he didn't want to leave at the end of that week, I didn't want him to go, our love was cemented in those first days together.
October that same year I was able to come & spend two weeks with him.
In 2016, I was able to come over to visit for 3 weeks, but we had to wait until December...I had to go back to Scotland before Christmas though.
One night in March 2017, during a Skype conversation, he said "it's unbearable, we need to be together" & started looking for an immigration lawyer.....but just three days later I found a lump on my breast which turned out to be cancer & we spent the next year still on opposite sides of the ocean concentrating on getting me through my treatment, he had just started a new job & couldn't get over to visit me. I was unable to travel until my treatment was complete....After chemo, lumpectomy & then radiotherapy I finished treatment in January 2018. I visited with him for the entire month of February, as luck would have it my flight back to Scotland was cancelled due to bad weather & I was here an extra week....it was during that February visit Ryan proposed & we went to the attorney to begin my immigration case. Immigration took a year, in the meantime I was over for the month of September but Ryan was having terrible tummy issues that I made him go to the doctor about, doctor said it was some kind of GI related thing & put him on a waiting list to see a specialist.
At the end of January this year,(whilst awaiting his appointment with the GI specialist) about three weeks before I was awarded my visa Ryan spent a week in the hospital due to kidney stones...that's when the doctors discovered his liver was over 70% tumor masses.
I worked my last day in Scotland on Friday 1st March & I landed here in Michigan on Saturday March 2nd. The doctors said it's neuroendocrine cancer, he wouldn't be cured but it would be treatable & Ryan should expect to live, with regular medications, for many years....
We married at the courthouse March 21st, we had a ceremony booked for May but we didn't end up going ahead with it.
Ryan pushed himself to keep working, he had such a strong work ethic(& the belief he would have some years still ahead of him), the doctors were offering him embolization of his liver masses & speaking very positively about it....so on the morning of June 27th he came home from a nightshift & drove an hour & a half to get to the specialist for his 1st liver treatment....he was meant to be kept in for 24 hours observation, but although the embolization went 'well' Ryan was in far more pain than they had anticipated, we stayed in the hospital for a week. He got home, but couldn't drive himself because he was weak, confused & on heavy pain meds....we were home for 3 days then his levels were all over the place so he was admitted to the local hospital.
I stayed with him every night in hospital, when the doctors heard our story they arranged for us to have a large/wide bariatric bed delivered so we could sleep together. We were in hospital for about 6 weeks & then we had one last week in hospice. Ryan fought through, pushed himself through pain, confusion, suffering, feeding through a nose tube, dialysis & weakness, ANYTHING to have just a little more time with me.....we comforted one another as best we could...
I was with him when he died, I told him how much I love him, he held my hand.....
He was my EVERYTHING! He knew it, his love for me, our shared love was something more than I had ever thought was possible.....his heart & mine, mine & his, bonded forever just as he said in the letter back in 2015, the words on my arm, his words, our hearts <3<3
