Posh tosh, but we loved it! Downton Abbey was one of Laura’s favorite TV shows. It was the first thing we watched together (she introduced me to it a few weeks after we met) and it was the last thing we saw together. It was Laura’s dying wish that her friend Reg bring the final season 4 episode to watch in hospital. A month earlier she had begged another friend Bridget to bring back what we thought was all of season 4’s DVDs from England so she could see it ahead of its US release (but we were oddly missing the finale). Laura loved Dame Maggie’s imperious cracks (Lady Bracknell on acid), the glam frocks and scenery and the on-again off-again romance between Matthew and Mary. When Matthew died shortly after the pair married, we blubbed (or at least, I did). And it seemed like our lives were running parallel. We met as the show started and now Mary was mourning her loss. ‘I don’t know who I am most in mourning for Matthew or for the person I was when I was with him,’ she says. I feel the same . Laura brought out the very best in me.I miss who I was with her. But I miss her most of all.
By the time we watched the final episode of Downton in hospital, I had to pause the show every 5 minutes to explain who the characters were and what was happening. One of the oddest things about Laura’s disease was how swiftly it progressed. She cycled all the way around Central Park just 10-12 weeks before she died. But barely a few weeks later the first signs that she was critically ill were evident when she could no longer read books or research on the internet. A short while later, she couldn’t follow movies or TV easily either. Although her speech remained pretty much intact until her final days, it was as if she was leaving her left brain with its word-oriented linear processing behind and moving into her right brain emotional side. She became incredibly intuitive about people. She suddenly saw some people differently, but mostly she exuded immense love and an almost childlike openness and serenity. It made me think of neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor’s extraordinary stroke experience. When the left side of her brain shut down, it brought her to a place of deep peace and connectedness that felt like nirvana.
Hear Jill Bolte Taylor describe her ‘stroke of insight’
Soul Love Forever 
Just yesterday a visiting friend of my current hospital roommates mentioned J. Bolte Taylor’s speech on TED in our conversation about how the when we are very sick and weak the right emotional brain sides becomes predominant. You, Lucie, mentioned it that this happened to Laura when she was on high dose drugs. I can confirm this as it happened to me -once again- recently when I was briefly on morphine again. Since I’ve been in the hospital, I have been readin your entire blog again – from the very beginning on. I read parts of it before, but this time I’ve been readin it like a book, page by page. Your love and dedication to one another is so special, so pure, so divine. I’m convinced that you two will be together forever in the afterlife -inseparable. All of us humans – we are here on this earth for only a short instant compared to eternity.
-All the best for you, Angelika
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Thanks Angelika. I know Laura is with me all the time now. I feel her love surround me. I feel her kisses, her warmth and hear her encouraging words in my head. Your soul mates will be hovering around you too, sending subtle messages and enfolding you in love. We just have to still ourselves to hear them. So sorry to hear you are in hospital again. Let me know how you are and what’s happening. Will send up a prayer for you. Lucie x
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Thanks Lucie, for the prayer and positive thoughts. This is wonderful to hear that you feel Laura’s love surrounding you. She will always be with you and around you as long as you live on this planet until you see each other again enfolding in each other’s arms on the “other side”. You never have to feel lonely even though this world sometimes seems to be a very lonely place.
Thanks for asking for what’s happening to me. I just came out of another miracle surgery Monday a week ago. It was quite a complicated reconstructive plastic surgery. I had been searching for over a year for “this” right surgeon who would tackle this type of surgery. Many doctors I consulted refused to perform it because it seemed too complicated. Thanks to the universe or God I found the most skilled doctor here in Toronto, I could have ever wished and prayed for. Not only did I lose my entire left leg in the 2012 accident, I also lost one buttock cheek and were only able to sit on one cheek and on a bit of terribly aching scar tissue for the past 2 1/2 years. Since this last surgery I tell everybody that a miracle worker had put hands on me, as I got my whole cheek reconstructed; all the scar tissue is gone and the deep hole is filled and my buttock looks normal again. Only one large incision reminds of a badly injured buttock. The procedure was called skin flap surgery. I’m a fierce believer in miracles because they are the ultimate reality and exceed all human prognosis.
I was very touched by your post “The Circle of Love” and will comment on it another time.
Best wishes, Angelika
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