The Loveliness of DAVE Where do I begin, Amazing, is the word that springs to mind. That is how I will describe Dave ,my husband. Dave, my soulmate passed away a few months ago from Bowel cancer . It was not the first experience with this awful disease that Dave had had. Seven years ago he had his left kidney removed, the cancer was thankfully contained. This though had taken 8 months to diagnose and endless tests . 13 years previous to this he had also had a double heart bypass and had to give up his career as a firefighter. Then a few years later was diagnosed with bipolar. I am telling you this to put everything in perspective, and if you had known Dave you would have discovered that his biggest battle had been "bipolar" and the stigma attached to it. Dave entered into an ongoing journey of trying to prove he could help others to cope with this,he also had a religious experience when first diagnosed ( a hypomanic episode) which gave him the courage to write and try to pass on any help he could ,it being first through poetry ,but found sending them to the MIND organisation for publication was futile,because as some of the poems contained the word GOD ,the poems were rejected. This then led Dave in another direction …and found looking for the meaning of life took him into the other love he had, philosophy. But Dave's lack of confidence was the Bain of his life,he actually wrote two books but lacked the confidence to take them further. The main point I am trying to get across is ,when Dave was diagnosed with Bowel cancer …the outlook looked good but suddenly took a turn for the worse as the disease went suddenly aggressive and spread to his liver , and the prognosis was changed to only months left to live. From that point something ,I and everyone who knew him noticed was Dave put all the coping strategies he had tried to pass on to others into practice. From the moment he was given the devastating news of his prognosis he faced it head-on ,displaying a calmness I cannot explain. Not once through all the awful ravages happening to his body did he say "Why Me" he was just so grateful to all the help being offered and said how fortunate he felt that everyone was so caring, and was so aware ,and accepting of his condition.One incident that comes to mind was when we were trying to lift him from his chair as he was so weak and him bursting out into song " You Raise Me UP " . Changing the sad situation into causing us all to laugh and that in a nutshell is how he held it together and did everything to make it easier not for himself but for us ,his family. Dave made it very plain right from the beginning that he couldn't handle " GLOOM and DOOM "so we took our lead from him,and he showed us a strength and positivity so strongly displayed ,he actually gave us strength . Looking back I can now see why he wanted it this way, If we crumbled, he would crumble.He let us all know the strength of his Love for us all in such a courageous way, I can only describe him as inspirational and truly AMAZING . ( I will end this tribute by saying not only was Dave truly loved,but he left us a wonderful Legacy of the true meaning of the word.)