But as I waited for something to come up, my mind-set kept slipping further down. I lifted my guitar one day and sat in the living room as the sun burst through the window. I tried to strum a few chords, searched desperately in my head for some words to come but my mind was totally blank. In frustration, I tested myself to see if I could get through a full version of James Taylor’s ‘Sweet Baby James’, one of my all-time favourites, but it just wasn’t happening. I had to really fight the urge to throw the guitar into the corner, then I sat there alone and cried for what I’d let this darkness do to me. Is this how Matthew had felt when he had been battling with his sexuality and it led him into depression? Am I depressed? Am I facing some sort of identity crisis?

Jack would know and would help me in a heartbeat if I spilled it all out to him, but he is struggling with a few heavy cases from work as it is, and I’m his wife after all, not his patient. So I hide it from him, only revealing my impatience at not being able to find work, when really I know my issues run a lot deeper.

Visiting Matthew in Galway managed to distract me for the short time I was there, but it also served to stir up some old raw emotions when I saw him in his new environment. His determination hadn’t waned since he left for pastures new, even though he’s been stuck in that chair for almost three years now, and it just breaks my heart every time I see him in comparison to the way he was, so handsome, vibrant, full of craic and music and song. His old spark is still there somewhere, ironically much more so than it was in the years just before his accident, but I put a lot of that down to Martin and how he has stuck by him every single day since it happened.

The weather was glorious while I was over in Galway and we spent our days in Matthew’s back garden with its sea view, drinking cold beers, reminiscing and putting the world to rights as we listened to music that brought us way back to our youth, not to mention the memories attached to every song.

‘Remember the time you got suspended for clapping along in choir practice, pretending to be someone out of Sister Act,’ Matthew reminded me, much to Martin’s amusement. ‘You were always getting into trouble; innocent trouble, but enough to put the nuns into a spin, not to mention our poor mother who was convinced it was front-page news every time. I don’t think she’ll ever get over you being caught smoking on the school bus. She was reminded of it every time she went to the post office!’