Emmerdale star Leah Bracknell's widower opens up about 'grief' in tribute after her death

express.co.uk:

Emmerdale star Leah Bracknell, who played Zoe Tate on the soap for 16 years between 1989 and 2005, sadly died of lung cancer three years ago.

Her husband Jez Hughes shared a blurry photo of the pair together before lamenting that he had lost her when she was aged just 55 - on the "same full moon as the Queen".Jez, who works as a shamanic healer, said that he would be "in the woods teaching and holding a sweat" as he penned a "fitting" tribute.Bursting into poetry, he continued: "Grief is like an eagle, it soars so high and close to the sun you think it’s gone, then suddenly it’s down upon you, talons tearing you to shreds til you’re bloody and bruised all over again, raw flesh exposed to the wind."The devastated widower added: "Grief is the price of love... [but] it is always a price worth paying."Posting a snap of the pair from years ago, with Leah resting her head affectionately on his shoulder, he wrote: "I found this old, blurred photo from way back when and it brought back good, if painful memories."Reflecting further on how his wife's death from stage four lung cancer had made him feel, he added that grief offered "no discounts" and was "as non negotiable as death itself"."Time changes everything, yet nothing at the same time, for grief knows no time, it operates to its own inner workings, dances to its own mysterious tune," he mused.He wrote that grief was both "awe-inspiring and awful" and "sensitised the already sensitised"."Despite all this, I pay the ferryman, the gatekeeper of all love and all loss, and will pay over and over again through this, and many lifetimes," Jez added."Grudgingly and gratefully all at once.