About

I am Kevin Plicio, a father of three wonderful daughters to a beautiful wife I was lucky to have. Katherine Plicio-Keattch was everything in my life, but then thanks to ‘Cancer’, everything changed!

Katherine aged only 42 years of age, passed away in the early hours of November 5thin 2012 barely seven months after being told she was ill. We were initially told she might have 2 to 5 years but as it turned out, her very aggressive condition gave us just 7 months to live out the rest of our marriage vows which started and ended; ‘til death do us part’.

In little more than the blink of an eye I watched my beautiful wife go from perfect health to virtually disappear into old age and taking all of our future hopes and aspirations with her. All I know about myself and my life disappeared in an instance.

If I didn’t know it back then, all I would have to come to terms with on a day by day basis, was soon about to unravel.

Losing Kath has been the single most difficult challenge from which I did not think I would emerge.

During these past many months I wish I had kept a record of each and every one of those days! But the incoming storm swept us up and engulfed us before we had even a sniff of a chance to baton down any hatches.

Here in the calm of its passing, my ears are still ringing, everything was such a blur that at times I could hardly remember what day of the week it was or what I was going to do with it, let alone face how I was going to get through it.

I lost the love of my life who I had first met and loved in college in 1986 more than 26 years ago, but as much as I’d lost, my daughters I know lost even more.

For our family it meant the dangled carrot of tomorrow was snatched away in an instant. We could see the grains of sand in the hourglass of our ‘happy ever after’ seeping away. I tried desperately to mop up the tears and be strong for my daughters Imogen, Aimée and Hannah, but at ages of 4, 9 and 14 this was not meant to be. Children so young do not deserve to have their ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ taken from dreams!

But before I could wipe any tears from my eyes, I had to stand up on my own, and raise three young daughters. These are the basic facts of my wife’s demise! Sounds simple enough now, doesn’t it?

The hardest thing has been finding ways to connect. The isolation I feel is overwhelming and despite a good network of friends and family I still feel alone. I just cannot find their words in away relate.

On one occasion I did try a bereavement support group but met no one in circumstances similar to me. I also looked once or twice for blogs on single widowed fathers but once again found nothing that helped.

In the absence of connecting with anyone at all, I channelled all of my thoughts into my writing. I guess now I am hoping my unspoken voice will connect in a way I could not find so easily within my immediate circle.

For a long time I guess I was in a kind of silent shock existing at times like a ghost in my own house. I would try, but often I could not hear anyone or anything and the voices of my daughters seemed to sound like a television in another room!

But every now and then something would cut through.

‘Daddy, what’s our life going to be like from now on?’, and in those moments I am snapped back to reality and all of my collective resolve crumples away once again. In that particular instance knowing I could not find any words to ease her fears, all I could do was climb into her bed, hold her and together then cry.

My wife’s death has had many casualties and not being able to share with those close to me is just one! But when you’re feeling so raw you withdraw from your loved ones to protect yourself from bleeding out. I don’t want to bleed out, but I still want my voice to be heard.

I guess this is how my words have ended up here.