Very sad news

Hello

Unfortunately this is not a pleasant blog post but it would seem that some people have heard already and, I thought it only fair that this came direct from me rather than 2nd hand rumors.

Sadly I need to tell you that my husband Mick died unexpectedly on Saturday September 11th.

He was out riding his motorcycle and had a heart attack. He told a friend he didn't feel good and was on his way home. He had been working away in the San Francisco area with his new job for the previous 2 weeks so I hadn't seen him. He flew in late Friday night, was tired and went to bed quickly. I only saw him for less than half an hour on the morning he died.

He felt fine. He only planned on being out a couple of hours and was then was coming back to do some dry walling. I was painting when the police man and coroner knocked on my door.

In those few moments my life changed beyond belief.

Last week I was busy dealing with the funeral arrangements so am sorry this has taken me until now.

Because I am here on my own and have no friends in the new area, my dear friend Patti flew straight out to me from the east coast. I truly do not know what I'd have done without her. I love you Patti.

I plan on returning to England as soon as possible. I came here to live in America 8 years ago to be with Mick and for that reason only. I have no one here and it would hurt to much to stay.

I have loved living in America and Mick took me to see so many amazing things. Hopefully one day I will be able to get past the pain and come and visit again.

But for now I have to get home. Mick's Mom is not in good health and has been unable to come here which has broke her heart. I have to get what I need to do here done as quickly as I can and take her Son home to her.

As you all know we were in the middle of renovating our house so I have so much work to finish so I can put it up for sale. Most of our things were still in boxes as we didn't plan on unpacking until we finished the house. Now Patti has gone home I have to go though everything we own and figure out how to sell it.

Mick was a wonderful man. He was kind, thoughtful, generous and extremely non judgmental. I am so lucky to have had him as my best friend for 30 years.

The things I keep hearing over and over from his friends are how thoughtful he was, how intelligent and knowledgeable he was and what a sense of humor he had. Mick was so much fun to be around and will be missed by many, many people.

Mick loved his job working on life support ventilators. He would tell me how lucky he was to not only have a job where he was able to help so many people but how it combined his love of physics, biology, chemistry and medicine. And the more problems that were thrown at him the more he thrived.

He once visited an 8 year old girl who, although on a ventilator, was mobile. She loved the band N- Sync but was sad that she couldn’t dance because the tubes on the ventilator weren’t long enough. Mick custom made new, longer tubing for her so she could get up of the bed and dance.

If you asked him why he loved his job so much he would say it was ‘because he was able to let little girls dance again.’

I loved him so very, very much and am absolutely devastated so please understand that I may not answer emails for a while.

Please. please, please tell your family you love them each time you are saying goodbye.

Mick Woodward
March 5th 1960 - September 10th 2011