"She suffered a great amount and I was very broken. When she passed away it was a mix of relief that her suffering was over and heartbreak that she was finally gone."

These heartbreaking words came from a man who was widowed at just 41, after his wife lost her battle with cancer.

Paul Hickman, from Evesham, became a widower after wife Kate Hickman died from a brain tumour just a week before her 37th birthday.

He said: “Kate was battling cancer for 23 months. She went through a variety of treatments, and became very weak. She was bed bound for the last nine months of her life due to a spinal injury that left her paralysed.

“Kate became very confused and angry, she would forget things and didn’t understand what was happening to her. Despite being given only six weeks to live she was still talking about going back to work, she didn’t realise she was dying. I tried to hide my tears, I didn’t want to upset her.”

“It was very difficult to watch her going from such an indepedent and intelligent woman to someone who I hardly recognised. She suffered a great amount and I was very broken by it all. When she passed away it was a mix of relief that her suffering was over and heartbreak that she was finally gone.”

Kate and Paul met in a pub in 2007 after speaking online for a number of weeks. They bonded over their love of food and married in 2011 after Kate proposed to Paul.

“Kate proposed on the 28th of February, as it wasn’t a leap year, she got as close as to the 29th as she could. I came home from work and she had cooked me dinner. Kate got down on one knee after we had eaten and asked me to marry her.” Paul says, through tears, he jokingly said he would ‘have to think about it.’

“I don’t enjoy cooking anymore, I have no-one to cook for, it doesn’t feel the same. It was something we did together. The loneliness is really hard. I come home from work and nobody is here. I still find it very hard, but Kate will always be with me.”

After Kate's death in 2018, Paul found some comfort when he joined Widowed and Young in Worcestershire, a charity which supports people under 50 who have lost their partner.

He said: “Watching Kate suffer and then losing her has been the hardest thing in my life, and the mutual support from other WAY members has helped me through some of the darkest of times. I’ve found that with the support of others it’s been possible to laugh together as well as cry together.”

To find out more about Widowed and Young visit: widowedandyoung.org.uk

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