Carol & Richard / by Richard

- The power of love -

What we lived was not light or casual.

It was a love that entered the body and stayed there.

In the castle, we loved each other in a way that felt ancient and safe. Stone walls, deep moats, shared mornings as if the world had finally agreed to leave us alone together.

There was tenderness there. Your dogs and our laughter. Silence that didn’t need filling. For a while, everything in me believed: this is where I stop searching.

Carol, you became my home in a life that was still finding its ground. I even allowed myself to imagine a deeper union and a shared future that crossed borders.

Richard loved you without defence, without calculation, with a devotion that asked only to stay, he had never felt this way before.

And that is where the pain began.

  • Because love arrived before safety could hold it.

  • Because care existed, but capacity faltered.

  • Because some wounds ask for distance when another heart asks for closeness.

The ending was devastating and it emotionally obliterated us.

Not dramatic just slow, heavy, and final.

Watching something alive fade while love was still present is a particular kind of grief.

Nothing shattered. Nothing exploded.

It simply slipped through our hands.

Nothing about us was false.

Nothing needs to be undone.

This was a real love.

One that changed how I understand tenderness, hope, and loss.

I let it rest now with gratitude, with sorrow, and with respect as one of those rare loves that were true, profound, and still could not stay.

 

Goodbye, my love.

I will miss you beyond words.

Forever.