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Being Mrs Smith

A Very Unorthodox Love Story

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Becoming Mrs Smith

We agreed on a happy ending, no matter what. We agreed that we'd have Ewan McGregor and Kate Winslet in the film version. However, and this is in no way a reflection of my regard or lack of it for Mr McGregor, I can't think of anyone who's anywhere near handsome enough to play my Mr Smith.

Recently I found a photo of him taken at around the time we were first getting to know each other but before we became a couple. What was I thinking? How could I not see immediately that this was the man for me? I mean, it was so obvious. Here was a man of rare beauty. I still don't understand why I didn't pursue him immediately.

But that wasn't how it was. I did see something in Mr Smith that was out of the ordinary. I noted the gentleness, the softness. I couldn't miss it: it was there on his face, open and very inviting. Still, we were a slow burn. It was uncomplicated and companionable, and it was fun. Neither of us was invested in having a relationship – we weren't actively looking. What we found while we weren't looking was treasure beyond expectation.

I think I knew for sure the morning after our first night together, when we shared a shower. The tenderness he showed, the thoroughness with which he washed me, every inch of me, slowly. The deepest part of me knew him then. In later years, his meticulousness and insistence on precision would sometimes give rise to frustration in me, but in that moment I saw who he was, and it's more than possible that I fell in love right there, naked and vulnerable, in the warmth and seclusion of the shower room.

Slow as it was, a few months later he moved in. We'd already experienced the stress of final exams together, followed by a demanding shared summer job. As the only two mature students left standing, having each taken a timeout at different times and for different mature-student reasons, we'd held each other up through enforced sixteen-hour study days and seven-day study weeks. We'd laughed and hugged and wept and shared. We knew who we were for each other, and we were ready.

I remember that time warmly. I was unexpectedly in love with this quiet man with the sometimes wry, sometimes just silly sense of humour, the hilariously foul mouth and the deep, sort-of-greenish-brown eyes. It was never the plan but it was the right thing, and although we couldn't know it then, it happened just when we both needed it to.

There were no fireworks or soaring violins. It was better than that. It was more like the slow alchemy of a fine wine maturing; it was the silent harkening of two souls to their calling to each other. It was the real thing, gentle and sweet and sometimes painful.

I could never understand why he loved me. I asked him to explain and he couldn't. He just loved me, pure and simple. He just did. He just does. He never stopped. Not for one second, and he never will, and therein lies the happy ending that we agreed on.

Life got in the way though, a lot. We were comfortably in love but we had to learn to be happy. We had to learn not to allow life to get in the way so much. It took a while. There were job stresses and money worries and family problems, and then there were health concerns. He was there through it all. He put up with a lot. Some people call that weakness. I call it power. Solid, steady, gentle and deeply masculine strength. It was exactly what I needed to anchor me and keep me safe.

I needed it – needed him – in different ways as time passed. We developed a mutual support system in response to our practical and emotional needs, driven by the will to create our happy ending. We didn't ever really have what you'd call a conventional relationship. We didn't do nine-to-five. There were times when I worked to support him through postgraduate study; times when he worked to support me through postgraduate study; times when we worked and played and studied together; times when we barely saw each other; times of disappointment when we had to give up on our plans (when life got in the way) ... and then ...

I got really sick. Then he lost his job. Then I lost my job because I'd got sick. There were no more job stresses but there were more money worries. I was too sick to take them on. He took them on. He was still there. Still solid, still steady, still with me and still willing to do whatever I needed of him. He carried me, a lot of the time literally. His heart hurt. His back must have hurt, when I was so weak that he had to take me upstairs and help me into bed. The touch of his breath on my cheek as he tucked me in, the warmth of him, the faint scent of his essence – I had these to soothe me as I drifted to sleep.

He had no idea whether I would get better, and at times, my condition must have challenged him beyond what was reasonable. One day, he drove me to a hospital appointment and I suggested he take himself to the café with his book rather than face the long wait between consultations. Half an hour later, I found him to tell him what they'd told me – that the vision I'd lost from my left eye couldn't be restored and that I would likely lose the use of my right eye too. It was too much. I cried, right there at the table. He cried too, and he held me. He said he couldn't imagine what such a loss would feel like, but he would feel it with me. What was mine was his, and that included my despair. It was not okay that I was going to be blind. He couldn't make it okay, not even with his magical embrace, but he was there, enduring it with me.

I didn't lose my eyesight though, and under the care of Mr Smith, my health was slowly restored. I'd seen sense, too, by now, and had felt inclined to unsay what I had been saying all along: that I didn't want – no way did I want – to get married again. I'd been there, done that, and it had not ended well. No matter how deeply I felt, I was not going there again. It was messy and unnecessary. Just no. No no no.

That had changed to a yes while I was still on long-term sick leave. I had to marry this man. It became imperative at around the time he became my full-time carer and reminded me that the tenderness he'd shown me in the shower those years before was at the core of who he was. It looked like he had no choice but to care for me but, of course, he had. He could have walked away. Just as he could have walked away, when I'd invited him to, after the conversation about children. He would have loved some, and he was still young enough. I'd been through all that already. He'd taken on my teenagers as part of the deal and embraced them as his family, but they were almost adults by the time we met. To choose me had been to give up on something he'd always hoped for, but he'd chosen me anyway.

He'd chosen me again when he'd had no way of knowing whether I'd ever be well again. For a while, it had looked likely I'd be back at work soon, and I'd tried too hard and too fast to get better. That was hard on him because it always led to a crash, and he was the one who was there to pick me up. I broke his heart again and again, but together we always seemed able to mend it.

Resilience was his heart's middle name, and this resilient heart had a lot to teach me. It taught me trust, in the knowing that it would always have my back. It showed me beauty and truth, clearly reflected in the sort-of-greenish-brown eyes. It left me in no doubt of my great fortune in knowing this man and having him choose me. He made me laugh, sometimes by saying or doing something hilarious, and sometimes just from the joy of having him close. It turned out that our elusive happy ending had always been there, weaving a glittering thread through even the roughest parts of the beginning and the middle. We were happy with our daily choices to stay together and to love each other like we'd never loved or been loved before.

He chose all of me, including the not-so-nice parts. He never tried to change me but being around him changed me anyway. That seems to be how true love works. We hold each other and value each other; we give and receive deep respect effortlessly and without judgment; we find a safe place in which to grow. And we listen.

Mr Smith was good at listening, even when I didn't say a thing. Over the years he'd listened carefully enough to hear me change my mind, and when the time came, he'd chosen his moment perfectly. He'd wanted to ask me for years but I'd been so certain I didn't want to, he'd put his own desire aside. He'd waited till I was ready, and if I never had been ready, that would have been okay with him. Whatever I wanted was okay with him. What I wanted was to be Mrs Smith.

The wedding was perfect. When I think of it and look at the photos and the video I'd reluctantly agreed to, the overwhelming impression is green. The ceremony was outdoors in the fullness of summer. I'd chosen a green dress (his favourite colour), and while the river and the waterfall featured heavily (it had rained a lot earlier in the day and the river was in gloriously full flood and noisy), the trees were luscious and abundant.

So was our mood that day. The sound and picture quality of the video aren't wonderful, but that doesn't matter. When I watch it, I remember exactly how I felt in the moment he turned towards me for the first kiss following the declaration of our vows, and I see not the tiny two-dimensional figures on the screen, but those sort-of-greenish-brown eyes and the depth of what I found there.

There are no words for what I found, and no possible analysis of his commitment to caring for me, which, of course, led to a gradual improvement in my health. I learned how to pace myself and manage my condition, and we defied the doctor's opinion that I'd remain nonfunctional for life. It's amazing what the right kind of TLC can achieve. It can restore hope and soothe away pain. It can work magic.

It can weave a glittering happy ending out of rough threads. Our story does have a happy ending but it doesn't come at the boy-meets-girl-boy-marries girl, happy-ever-after stage. As is the way with true stories, it's not that neat. This is a true story. It's my version of the truth, from my memory. Mr Smith might have a different perspective, a slightly different truth, but this is our story nonetheless. I know he's happy for me to share it with you and to show you our own flavour of happy ending. But the story comes first, and it starts in the springtime, with the promise of a new beginning.

What the Doctor Said

Monday April 16th 2012

We thought it was routine. We didn't know they were looking for what they found.

The money worries would soon be over. Mr Smith had been offered a position in Germany, doing what he'd been doing before our life together began. It wasn't what he wanted to do, but the pay was generous, the contract was only for a few years and it would give us the financial security, finally, to put an end to the stress. At the end of those few years, we'd be able to create our happy ending and do what we both really wanted to do.

The work itself was easy for him (though it has to be said that Mr Smith has never shirked from hard work), and it would all be virtually stress-free. I was doing much better by now too. I'd even dipped my toe tentatively into some freelance work. I didn't need a full-time carer anymore.

We would miss each other, of course. We'd barely spent a night apart in our eleven-year history. But we knew that in a very real sense we'd be together wherever in the world our respective bodies happened to be. Anyway, he'd come home often, and there would always be phone calls. We agreed that missing each other and then getting together again could add a new dimension to our relationship. The frisson of the airport reunion appealed to us both; the airport goodbyes were worth enduring.

He was doing this for us – for our future. Meantime, it would enrich our present. We'd make the most of it, and the most of it was going to add up to a lot. We'd have the freedom to enjoy those reunions in Paris, Rome, Venice ... and of course, we'd still be together sometimes at our own hearth in Scotland with our dearly loved dogs and cats in our laps.

It was the promise of this new adventure that brought him to the doctor's surgery, and to that 'routine' appointment that would change everything.

The job demanded stamina. The hours were long, and he wasn't sure he had the energy. He'd been so very tired lately, which wasn't surprising when you considered how full life had been. Taking care of me, the uncertainty of our future, the remnants of past stresses – there had to be consequences.

Those past stresses reached back a long way and we barely noticed their continuing effects. Now it seems clear that they were both a lasting impediment to full health and a catalyst for positive change.

Before we'd come together, he'd had depressive symptoms that had been heavily managed with medication. In our early years, we became aware of their impact only when I asked for his support with a work project. I'd been learning to use a new diagnostic tool to identify issues affecting people's day-to-day lives, and I needed a guinea pig to practise on at home. Of course, he obliged.

On the question 'To what extent do drugs affect your life?', he scored alarmingly highly. For 'drugs', read 'antidepressants', and for 'alarmingly highly', read 'almost off the scale'. Absorbed in my work, family commitments and the weaving of the happy ending, I'd had no idea. Neither had he, until that evening when, committed to helping me with my work assignment, he took the time to sit quietly and really listen to what was going on within himself.

We'd always been health-aware. We ate consciously and we'd both been intermittent meditators for years – when life didn't get in the way. We'd smiled at the popular quote, 'Half an hour's meditation each day is essential, except when you're busy, and then a full hour is required'. We'd groaned in recognition of its truth but now was the time to start taking it seriously. More stillness, more listening, looked a likely first step towards health and freedom.

He took that first step at the local Buddhist centre, where they offered a six-week course in yoga and meditation aimed at increasing mental health. The step turned out to be a leap. Mr Smith was a conscientious learner, and surprisingly quickly, he was no longer on medication. Life became better for us both. He was more alert, more enthusiastic, and generally a happier version of himself. Bolstered by success, we upped our game in terms of diet too. It was never going to hurt, particularly as my own health issues were becoming apparent. We developed an interest in food as therapy and we allowed ourselves some complementary treatments too, when the budget could stand it. A few years later, we would spend part of my pension lump sum on an infrared sauna, a high-powered blender and a powerful juicer, among other things. To become well enough to enjoy the glittering thread in our present and the happy ending in our future, we needed to take better care of ourselves.

It all helped and, over time, we both saw benefits. Still, life happened to us and still we got stressed. We could justify those investments in our health but, nonetheless, we worried almost incessantly about the state of the bank balance, and the juggling of work, study and family took its toll. So far, so normal. So far, so unhealthy, no matter what practical steps we took.

Throughout all of this though, we had each other and we remembered to laugh and love and enjoy life. When the funds were really low, we made a game out of challenging ourselves to spend just a wee bit less each week at the budget supermarkets, and to make do with what we had instead of buying new – which seemed a sensible, sustainable and responsible way to live whatever the numbers on the bank statement. We made the best of everything. We were conscious of that glittering thread, still clearly visible among the worried threads, the stressed threads and the why-is-this-happening-to-us threads. We knew what we had: we always, always had the softness, strength and safety of loving arms to hold us at night.

Of course, that would change when he went to Germany, but it wasn't going to be forever, and we didn't have to be together in body to be together. Even apart, we were bound by that glittering thread and by knowing who we were for each other.

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Excerpted from Being Mrs Smith by Cheryl Smith. Copyright © 2015 Cheryl Smith. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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