40 years ago, on Valentine’s Day, Martin invited me out on our first date.
I did not know then that an ordinary evening would quietly become the beginning of a lifetime together. We had lots in common, our passion for teaching, music, walking, reading and the theatre and yet we are so very opposite: for example, I am a “now’” person and Martin is not, (as the sign in our pantry says – “First I have the coffee, then I do the things”). I will often wake up and the first thing I will say to him is, “I have had an idea.” One can hear the deep sigh resonating around the bedroom. However, to give him his due, he is really good in making my dreams come true.
That September, we married, and 40 years later we are still here – not because the years have been always easy, but because love kept choosing us, again and again.
Together we have built a family: a daughter, Sophie, then a son, Tristan, two new lives shaped by shared values, laughter, patience, and the steady reassurance of home and long summer holidays travelling the world together making memories. I used to get the children to write journals, which at the time they were not too fond of, but now they look back and with the aid of the diaries, memories come flooding back. We collected stories rather than souvenirs and the most important thing we gave our children was time.
Music wove itself through our days with both children taking after their father in their musicality. I too did learn the piano and Martin and I played a duet in a school concert: it was strictly a one-off for I was shot with nerves.
Martin was for years the family photographer but moving to Oxford I took up his old camera and learnt the difference between an f stop and a bus stop. I went on to make it my career and now we work together. Not only do we photograph, we also create videos and have a YouTube channel called Showcasing Rye!
We have lived in eleven different postcodes, each one a chapter, a place where love learned to adapt. The children learnt to make new friends and I often took up a new career to fit in around Martin’s teaching responsibilities. Then came the hardest tests: cancer – three times. Martin fought each one bravely. There were moments when the world narrowed and the future felt fragile but love did not falter. It showed up in hospital corridors, in whispered reassurances, in holding on when letting go felt easier. And still – here we are. Survivors. Stronger. Grateful.
We retired to Rye in 2014. “Retired”— officially but not really; in fact we are probably busier than ever.
Now there is our granddaughter, Darcy, a new light in our lives, a reminder that love keeps expanding, making room for wonder all over again. We are a close family and still holiday together, teaching our granddaughter how to make lasting memories like her mother did.
The sea calls to us now: its tides are steady and familiar. We live close to it, breathe easier beside it, knowing that some loves, like the ocean, are shaped by time but never diminished.
Along the shore we have gathered sea glass, each piece once sharp, now softened by time, beautiful because it had endured.
40 years on, we are not the same people we were that first Valentine’s Day. We are deeper, wiser, weathered by life’s storms and life’s experiences. And still – hand in hand -choosing each other, every day.
Image Credits: Sue Bruce , Kt bruce , Sally Vickers , Dena Smith Ellis , Sharon Peters , Jack Lowe .