G car with my gun
downstairs, where I would make her as omfortable as possible.
On a beautifully fresh summer’s morning at the end of June we made it out into the garden and sat in deckhairs with a coffee.
Caroline had her sunglasses on and, despite everything she had endured, was still beautiful, graceful and delightful company. We enjoyed the unshine and each other’s company mud-soaked clothing, and the machine gun I was carrying, I opened the car door and jumped straight in.
Despite my dulled senses I saw the horror on the face of the woman sitting behind the wheel in the driver’s seat. It was the wrong car. In my most polite but and I took the opportunity to tell her how much I loved her.
Caroline noticed a stirring in the little rose bed by the side of the house.
It was a mole. Gradually it worked its way to the surface and popped its sleepy head out.
It paused, as if to enjoy the lovely sunshine, before deciding that it was perhaps better off underground.
clearly flustered voice I could only think to stammer, ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I think I’m in, er, the wrong car.’
There was no reply. She, not unreasonably, just stared at me, aghast, so I got out of the car as quickly as I’d got into it. The car sped off.
I legged it back into the undergrowth, and a minute later the correct car pulled in. “Look before you leap, Jarv!” cracked a voice from the undergrowth.
Caroline recounted the tale to the children when they returned from school and was as excited to tell them about it as they were to hear it.
It was the last time I saw her smile. In the weeks that followed she declined with terrifying speed.
On a Friday morning in July Caroline became very short of breath. An ambulance came and took her away. I sat by her hospital bedside for several hours.
All day I could see and feel Caroline sliding away. I sat holding her hand all night and for most of the following day.
That afternoon I could feel her going and at 3.30pm she died. I had no idea what to do. I sat with her for a while.
Despite all the time I had spent thinking about it, trying to prepare myself for this moment, I wasn’t ready.
Eventually, I thanked the staff for their care and walked slowly out. I was holding a small plastic bag containing Caroline’s belongings – her dressing gown and a washbag I’d made up with a few toiletries.
I’d arrived at the hospital with my wife. I was leaving with a plastic bag.
I drove back to our house, opened the front door and walked in.
That’s when the magnitude of it hit me – like a shock wave washing over me, a force field of anguish and hurt. I walked into the kids’ bedroom and sobbed uncontrollably.
How cruel and unfair that they had lost their mum.
I couldn’t make it stop. couldn’t make it go away.
Losing Caroline only reinforced my understanding of how important it was to make the most out of life and I had long
I before come to understand that what you do for a job really matters.
If I was going to leave the Army it would have to be for something that still gave me the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution.
Although I missed Caroline enormously and felt that huge sense of loss, day by day, week by week, month by month, I had started to work my way through the fog of grief to a point where I was able to ask questions of myself about what I wanted to do in the future.
I thought that serving in politics just might be the way to go and I began to get excited at the prospect of this new challenge. ■ © Dan Jarvis 2020, extracted from Long Way Home, published by Little, Brown, out now £18.99.
I walked into the children’s room and sobbed.. how cruel, how unfair