Heartbreaking True life
I never dreamt I’d have to say goodbye to my life partner...
Adam Mould, 42, from Birmingham
Leading my partner Annie out onto the balcony, I had a huge surprise planned. With 1,000 fairy lights overlooking Birmingham’s canals, I’d always wanted to give Annie a Disney relationship.
And on 31 November 2013, that’s what I did.
That day we’d been to a falconry centre, as Annie loved birds of prey, before donning a fancy suit and taking her out to dinner.
Having told her I needed to pop into my office, I instead led her out onto the balcony, with my dad, Steve, 64, and brother Alex, 37, waiting below.
Handing her a scrapbook, it matched the scrapbook from Up – one of Annie’s favourite films.
Watching her flick through our years of memories, she paused on one page.
What’s next for us?
‘Will you marry me?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’Annie smiled, bursting into tears.
And that was Dad and Alex’s cue to let off the fireworks.
When I met Annie on a night out in 2008, I thought she was beautiful. Far too beautiful for me to approach her.
But when her handbag broke, I saw my chance to speak to her.
Although, we were friends for two years after that as Annie had renounced men!
She was a unicorn of a person.
Funny and creative, Annie loved Disney and Japanese horror. Being with her, she was my best friend as well as my partner.
And following our engagement, we bought our house in 2015, with our two cats Ico and Simba.
We knew we didn’t really want children and a lot of our wedding budget seemed to go on holidays.
We wanted to see the world, making trips to Paris, Barcelona and Amsterdam, dreaming of destinations like Japan and South Africa.
It didn’t matter that our engagement was longer as a result.
Only towards the end of 2020, Annie began to complain of pain in her legs and back, as well as irregular bleeding.
After going back and forth with the doctors, Annie was referred for a smear test and scan at the end of December.
‘They’ve found a mass,’ she called me in tears after the doctors phoned with her results in January 2021.
The first thing I did was Google it and it broke my heart.
At no point had we considered cancer.
I felt sick to my core. Going with Annie to her biopsy, I held her hand the whole time.
‘It will be OK,’ I’d tried to reassure her.
A few days later, we were told to come in to discuss the results.
It was all such a blur and Annie began to panic.
Until this point, I don’t think she had quite grasped the severity of the situation.
On 13 January, we went to see the doctor at City Hospital with Annie’s mum, Kelly, 63, waiting in the car.
