I told myself this eventually would happen, but I still am not prepared for it when it did. How can anyone be prepared for what happens next.

On March 25th, a couple of hours past midnight, the love of my life Lina passed away peacefully in her sleep.

We had been fighting cancer for the last 5 years, it really hurts that we couldn’t beat it, and she has to go so young. Lina barely made it past her birthday in February, she was 41. We met each other when we were 20s and she’s been grinning at me for the last 21 years.

Lina is someone I don’t write a lot about, but has always been the driving force of many things that I did (or rather, we did together). She understood what I do - she was the first to cheer for my MVP award (we went to celebrate with yummy food!), she took care of the kids, she took care of our business, she’s always got my back, she made sure I smile - she is someone that is always smiling.

So now I have the near impossible task of raising our two young kids and I really don’t know how I’m going to do this alone.

Everywhere I look, I see her. I wish, I had more time to tell her how much I’m missing her.

In my January post I said I would probably take time off until April. I’m going to need more time. Right now the kids are in school holidays for two weeks, and I’m taking the time to care for them. As school resumes next semester, I’m going to see if I can ease myself back into work.

• There’s work to do to update Flow Studio.

• Have some ideas and plans for Clarity - but more importantly, I’m really keen to hear from friends and teams that needs automated flow monitoring. Let me know if that is you.

• I also have consulting work to resume with a few clients.

Lots to do, but some days, I crash and can’t find the ability to pull myself together to work on anything.

In her final days, she’d grab my face to tell me:

Remember to smile, don’t bottle everything in your heart.

I don’t know how to smile anymore, I cry and wail, as someone whose heart is utterly broken does.