A Kirkcudbright woman has released a collection of poems written while her husband battled cancer.
Amanda Nithavrianakis wrote “You said you’d never leave me – a journey through loss and grief” before and after husband John died from cancer of the oesophagus last year, aged 52.
With the help of a crowdfunding campaign by her friends, it has now been printed with copies already winging their way around the world.
Amanda, who is 42, said: “I had written since I was little. I wrote bits of poetry and creative writing but hadn’t done any for a long time. John fell ill in 2017 with cancer of the oesophagus and it was a way of coping.
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“The first one I wrote while I was waiting in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary while he was being operated on to remove his entire oesophagus. He loved it and I continued to write.
“When he died last April, I posted a few to Facebook and they were quite popular. My friends said I should have it published. I was bit reticent but my husband had said I should do something.
“My friends held a crowdfunder to have them published and I got them a couple of days ago. I’ve already been posting them to Oman, Australia and America.
“It was really cathartic and you can look at the differences through the poems. At the start it was like a journey and very positive, then negative with the illness, then he was getting better and then came the inevitable.”
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The book is available for a donation and a percentage of the proceeds will go to the Fishermen’s Mission.
Amanda added: “They gave incredible support to John and I. He was the captain of a fishing trawler and was quite well known in the town.
“I am also hoping to take our son, Nico, to Crete. John was half Cretan and his family is there. Nico is 10 and he is chuffed to see his dad’s name in print.”
Copies can also be obtained by contacting Amanda through Facebook or by emailing amandanithav@gmail.com.
