Some events make you realise the cliches are true. You must live every day to the full and if you love someone, let them know it each and every day.
Something really strange happened yesterday, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.
We were woken at 5.30am by my neighbour shouting his wife's name, at the top of his voice, with increasing urgency.
They are a couple much like Lizzie and myself. Happy, devoted, comfortable in each other's company and totally in love. We hear them sometimes cracking jokes, ribbing each other, always good natured.
At the end he was so loud it was as if he was in the room.
Our initial thoughts, in those moments that follow a rude awakening, were that he had been out for the night and she had locked him out.
That was until he made the phone call. Panic was in his voice as he told the person at the other end of the line that "she's not breathing."
I got my clothes on, then sat on the edge of the bed, unsure of what to do. We're not the close to the neighbours, as friends. We exchange pleasantries, but the most we have ever spoken was when the fence was down last year because of some building work they were having done. Other than that, the extent of our contact has been Christmas cards and saying hello in the street.
So I didn't know whether going round was the right thing to do. But I was also scared, that if she was ill my lack of first aid knowledge might make things worse, and that if she was dead, well.
My decision was made for me when the paramedic pulled up. We heard her go into the room. "Her heart's not beating sir, I don't know why."
The ambulance pulled up a short while later. They seemed to be in there a while, and then everything went quiet.
We discovered later that Laura had died that night, in bed. Just passed away in her sleep.
She was 39-years-old.
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