A widower
who lost his wife to Alzheimer's 72 years after their first kiss has
touched hearts across Britain by penning a heart-wrenching poem in her
memory.
Bob
Lowe, 93, from Barton-on-Sea in Hampshire, described the deep
loneliness he has felt since his wife Kath died three years ago in his
work Ode to Kath.
Their
relationship survived the Second World War and they were together for
six more decades. But the terrible disease took its toll in her later
years, until one day she asked him: 'Where's Bob?'
One Twitter
user, @welshflier, wrote: 'Bob Lowe's matter-of-factness about old-age
loneliness makes it more heartbreaking. Now cooking breakfast while
crying.'
Another,
Miles Evans, wrote: 'Don't often well up but Bob Lowe just made me.
What a legend. Heartbreaking and spirit soaring at the same time'.
Bob and Kath met in 1937 but were separated when the Second World War broke out in 1939.
Despite
the distance, they sent each other love notes and photographs and Bob
proposed to his love while he was on active service.
They wed in 1946 upon his return and a friend who worked for Kodak recorded their wedding video in colour.
They went on to have two daughters and a son.
Bob said: 'Well, you're going back to 1937, I met my Kath. She was lovely.
'One of the guys said to me "Hey, she fancies you" and I said "Well I certainly fancy her".
'Unfortunately
in 1939, the war separated us, but while I was over there I thought I
need to write to her and ask her to marry me.
'Family life in those days was a happy life.'
After
six decades together, she her memory began to fade. Her husband raised
the alarm with doctors after she failed to recognise him one night and
she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
He said: 'One evening she turned around and and she looked at me and she said "Where's Bob?" and I said "I'm Bob".
'The bottom dropped out of my world then. The doctors said she was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.
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