Proposal - Three and Thirty Years Ago

It sometimes happens that a man and a woman meet and instantly recognise the other half of themselves behind the eyes of each other. Such a meeting occurred between Sarah and I. From the first moment we met and gazed upon each other, our spirits rushed together joyfully, ignoring convention and custom, driven by an inner knowing ― too overwhelming to be denied. It is more than coincidence that, out of the whole world, Sarah and I should be drawn together at the appointed time. Through each other we found wholeness. For I did not know how empty was my life until it was filled with Sarah.

Exactly thirty-three years ago, on Passion Sunday, April 1987, whilst staying at her parents’ rambling Wiltshire home, I asked Sarah to marry me. She accepted and the following week, on her birthday, I presented her with a solitaire engagement ring. We had spent the entire day at Avebury where ancient stones stand tall. Four months later we were married in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, at 11.15am. 

Sarah arrived in a vintage 1930s Roche-Talbot. On this thirty-third anniversary of our engagement, which also falls on Passion Sunday, we recall that special day of promising ourselves to each other.

Sarah made a beautiful bride. On the last evening together as single people we had walked in the moonlight at twilight in a wooded area close to her parents’ house. Bats suddenly filled the darkening sky, some swooping to touch us as we stopped to look at them. It was somehow fitting, symbolic of a last brush with a world we had both encountered from completely different perspectives.