A journey

After nine years of procrastinating, my gorgeous man proposed marriage to me. We were 'second time arounders' and between us had a house, a (redundant) bachelor pad, five teenage boys and a cat. To all appearances, we had a family home and were a fully functioning team, albeit suffering struggles that children can bring. We were in love, feisty, shared the good things in life and, quite frankly, I wanted to cement the union with rings and a pretty dress. More importantly I believe in marriage; it tells the world that you are in the long haul forever, good, bad and ugly. And so, on Christmas Eve 2015 my Man took me to the venue of our first date and surprised me completely by producing a ring. I cried as he worked his way through a speech he had prepared. Afterwards, I wish my nail polish wasn't so chipped!

We married 18 months later, at a palace on the River Medway with our closest friends and family. We (I) chose music for the service that was uniquely personal to us and afterwards we took our guests for a boat cruise with fizz. Celebrations continued at our local pub where we had previously celebrated birthdays, Valentines days and Mother's days. It was perfect, topped off with a road trip to the Italian lakes.

Wedded life came easy; it felt different to having just lived together. Better different, committed, caring, special and warmer. Families now united, the romance was easy to see. Even though I fiercely held on to my maiden name, I was now my Man's wife and it felt like the punctuation that our relationship had longed for.

For ease, we had bought a new build house. Both of us worked full time and a ready purpose home made easy living for our large brood. Neither of us are particularly into interior design - all we need is a few sight and sound gadgets and a functioning kitchen. Whilst Man developed his cave in the garage surrounded by bikes and their paraphernalia, my attention turned to our little garden. A square patch of scratchy grass has developed into established shrubs and pretty flowers with a bit of landscaping completed by Man's own hands. Some of the plants had come with me from my previous home and were nearly 30 years old! I lovingly care for these growing miracles, sheltering them from the wind that is so prevalent up in the high village where we live. Fences became covered with hydrangeas and jasmine, roses and grape vines. The lawn is still patchy thanks mainly to the golden retriever who uses it as a loo but we forgive her. She is part of our family and the garden is hers too.

In Spring this year, we had many coffees on the patio, admiring how pretty and settled the garden looked. My husband commented that had he been left to the garden it would still be a square patch of scrub and he greatly appreciated the time and planning I'd put into creating our outdoor living room.

"But there's a gap by the fence" I noted one day. "We need a tree for more structure".

So off we popped on a very warm April afternoon to our local garden centre. After an hour, literally, of um-ing and ar-ing we selected a lime-leaved locust tree. I drew back the sunroof of my teeny car and drove the tree home sticking mostly out of the top! My husband dug a hole and we planted little locust and admired our choice. Weirdly, the tree felt like the missing piece from our home. Trees grow roots so strong and I had wanted to mirror the sentiment of the reading we had read at our wedding:

' ...Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.'

For the first month, the tree struggled to survive. It needed gallons of water and shelter from the high winds. I watched it every day bending and twisting to stay up right, watching leaves curl and unfurl from dehydration to content. Such was my wish for its success I whispered to it "stay strong, little tree". And so it did - new growth appeared, like little spines, each one giving hope, marking the beginning of our married life, growing roots deep into the soil and providing shade for my ferns. We would watch this tree grow and mature and will provide us with happy memories when we became old and retired.

Two months later, as spring turned into a stifling hot summer, a bolt of unexpected news hit our world. My husband came home on a Tuesday afternoon. He sat me on the patio and cried, mumbled something about cancer, not curable, blood, bones....but I couldn't hear. I stared at the little tree and knew from that moment that our roots would be tested.