MICHAEL Palin has opened up about what keeps him going in the aftermath of his dear wife’s death a year ago.
Helen sadly passed away last May after battling with chronic pain and eventually suffering from kidney failure.
Her husband has now shared that being bereaved felt like ‘losing a limb’, admitting that he still talks to her in his head.
The Monty Python star told ITV hosts on Good Morning Britain: “It’s like you’re a unit, and suddenly you are not a unit any longer, and it’s a bit like losing a bit of a limb, you’re not quite sure where you are.
“I do hear her and she had a great sense of humour. Sometimes I will have done something and I’ll get back and tell her about it.
“Although she’s not there, I know her reply and it makes me smile.
“I find myself idiotically in the sitting room on my own going ‘Oh yes!’ So that’s good.
“She was great and we have good memories.
“So much of your own life is invested in that one person so there is a huge slice of my life which I now can’t really access in the same way.”
Michael went on to share what keeps him ticking now that Helen is gone, saying: “We’ve got family, children, grandchildren, they sort of take over, but it’s not the same, not quite the same.
“It’s been just over a year but I get on with work, that’s the thing.
“And I hear Helen saying ‘Get on with it, go on, stop messing about’.”
The couple met on holiday in Suffolk when they were both teenagers, and got married a few years later in their early twenties.
Michael and Helen celebrated their 57 year wedding anniversary just two weeks before she died.
They had three children together: Thomas, 54, William, 52, and Rachel, 48.
Helen had to be looked after in respite care for the last few months of her life as her health declined rapidly, despite remaining “mentally active” according to her husband.
