a. David

I don't remember the first time I saw David.

Friendships can be like that.

He remembers the first time he saw me, however. He tells me that I was standing with the other fifth year medical students on the surgical ward of the tertiary hospital where he was working as an intern.  I appeared shy and quiet and I stood at the back of the group. (Actually, I just didn't  want to be asked any questions by the tutor.  A rule for students:  Don't let the teacher catch your eye if you don't want to be pounded with questions.  Find something - anything - fascinating on the floor or in your note book to study.  Intently). He liked my long dark hair and 'something' about me. Just something which made him feel he had to get to know me.

David told me years later, long after we were married, that he'd made a 'swap' with another intern, a girl called Geraldine, to have me, with another girl, as the students he'd mentor -  instead of the students he'd been assigned.

Soon after this, he says, he saw me reading medical charts. He approached me.  He made some comment about what I was reading - just to talk with me - and the thing that he remembers most is my smile.

'Your face just "lit up",' he says now ... and then he pauses, quietly, to reflect.  I notice him smile, when he tells me about this memory - as he has many times over the years - and I can see that he is in the past again, in a memory in which I was a part but which I cannot recall.

What I do remember, is that from the time David entered my life, when I was 21, I began to see myself holding some sort of 'value'.  I'd previously felt unwanted,  unloved, and lonely. Life was to be endured.  Happiness and boyfriends were for other people.  I watched on and listened to their stories. However, David brought all of those wonderful experiences of life with him into my world. Gradually, I began to feel almost good enough.

Years after our first meeting - although many years in the past for me now - David bought me a small print, the size of a square tissue box, in a rough wooden frame. My first impression of his gift was how ugly it was.  It was my birthday and I remember looking at the blurry painting of two people in a hot air-balloon and wondering how soon before I could throw it away, or give it to the Goodwill shop.
  
Seeing the disappointment on my face,  David told me what the picture meant to him:  'That's us,' he said 'travelling through life together on a great adventure. That's how I see my life with you.' 

With those words the picture became more valuable to me than any masterpiece or expensive piece of jewellery.  The picture of the couple flying high above the world on an adventure became the way I, too, saw our life together.

I keep the picture in my study now - as treasured as the pictures and cards my children have made me. (Research has shown that the sentiment behind a gift is a large determinant of the gift's value to the receiver.  That is certainly true for me. An expensive gift, for example, given with no card, no kind words, and maybe even purchased by someone other than the giver - would mean far less to me than a handmade card or a flower given with kindness and love).

So, it is with David I have become the best version of myself. He makes me a better person:  Kinder; happier; more energetic,more loving, and more able to help  others.

David is my safe place, my cheer squad, my best friend, my soul mate, and evidence to me that the world is a loving place.


Wherever David is - when I'm with him I'm home.