Romance

There doesn't seem enough of it around.  Years ago before people could phone each other, twitter, insta, or facebook, there was the chance for lovers to express themselves on pen and paper.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How do I love thee, let me count the ways."
Carol Anne Downing "Warming my lady's pearls."
William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116 " the one that starts - Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when alteration finds..."

Recently I have been thinking about my husband.

In my minds' eye, I see him steadfast, tall, holding his dying brother's hand. A hand that looked exactly like his own. Looking into the far distance and keeping his brother company in his last moments.

I loved him so much at that time.

I watch him sleep. When we first got together it was because I was frightened he would hear me snore. But now I watch his chest rise and fall silently, listening to the comforting purr of his breathing. 

He is my good sense, my touchstone, my best friend and collaborator in all things.
We have our secret world.

His smile makes me smile. He is kind, clever, loving and capable.

Yet doesn't see it.

He has sat with me many hours in the Hospital holding my hand. Comforting me, making me laugh, making me brave enough to face all the tests I  had to undergo. 

We wake and look at the sunrise together, we shower together, recently this, as I have problems with balance. 

I look in his olive green eyes and I still see the young man I fell in love with, the young man who bought me lunch at work when I was living on Mars bars, so that I could pay a mortgage and bring up my son on my own.

It's been twenty two years since he walked into the BBC Studio where I worked and we were introduced to each other.

We were fast friends almost immediately. Confiding in each other, and being stupid together, going for long drives after work, so long at one time that we were reported missing to the police!

I love him more every day, even though the times have been hard these past three years for us. Illness, bereavements, estrangements from those we loved.

So many memories now, and so many more to make.  

I was lucky to find the love of my life, and as dear Jane Austen says in Pride and Prejudice, 'Reader, I married him.'