text: “To live is to love, yet to love is to die” is what my grandfather told me. A seldom spoken man yet a kind one. He was the type of person to never hold a grudge, I believed he wasn’t capable of doing harm on anyone as a child. But every man has a breaking point. It is those who are most patients breaking point that you do not want to see. My grandfather had such a breaking point. I questioned his quote, the speech he gave me after he went silent for months. We visited him many times after his wife, my grandmother’s death. My mother and I would make the long trip to his secluded home in the countryside every fortnight to see how he is doing, yet he was quiet. He was half French and half Irish, and interesting blend of a man. Tomas was his name. Such a gentle name. I only knew one Tomas and it was him. I wished to never meet another, for they would never live up to him. His greatness outmatched all other men, my husband to be at the time could only match his shadow. Yet my grandfather enjoyed his company all the same. My husband Michaél, like my grandfather was a man of the land. He farmed wheat and barley whilst my grandfather cared for his fields of meadows and his orchard. How he loved the meadows. They were his pride and joy, until his wife passed. As a child me and my siblings would fly kites and play games of hide and seek all throughout the orchard and meadows until my grandmother called us in for dinner. The blissfulness of the fields was like something else I never felt. A place of pure joy, where no evil found its place. I never understood until my old age what he meant by “To live is to love”. Not until we sat that day under the tree that sat atop the hill, overlooking his kingdom. Both of us had not spoken in weeks, yet we knew he was nearing the end of his story. That’s why I believe he confided in me. He had to finally let go. I was sat in the kitchen that had the view of the tree that had then stooped so low it took the form of a willow, a sad giant that once held up the sun. Tomas slowly climbed the hill struggling to reach the summit with his feeble body. It hurt me to see him struggle, yet I couldn’t help. I knew if I went to aid him, he would refuse. He refused everything since Daisy passed. She went in the night, Christmas eve. Yet she was already gone. The dementia took her long before, a slow yet painless death for her. Not my grandfather though. I could tell it wore him down to his lowest yet he still stood tall. That was why he fell further; he was a proud man and it is the proudest who fall the hardest. I watched as he visited her in the hospital or sat on at the side of her bed. The cottage they owned slowly wore down yet neither of them seemed to notice. They could only focus on each other. One day I sat in the living room, playing in front of the small fire on the ragged carpet that itched your legs once you hit the floor. Daisy was reading a book, or somewhat trying. I think she just stared at the pages as Tomas watched her. She would ask his name every time they met, and Tomas would smile at her maybe a tear running down his cheek. “I’m Tomas” he would say with a sad smile on his face, “and you are?” “I’m Daisy, pleasure to make your acquaintance” she would say, smiling with her blissful ignorance. But this time it was different, Tomas greeted her with his regular saying but she looked up at him. No sign of ignorance, but she looked sad. Her eyes met his and a tear slowly escaped. Daisy grabbed his wrist and titled her head. “I don’t know” she whispered so silently only the slight wind creeping in the window overshadowed her. “I don’t know my name.” Tomas grabbed her wrist alongside it and did something I could never. He smiled and kissed her hand. “You’re just tired my love, go back to bed” And so, she did. He sat back in his chair, his bed for the forthcoming weeks and put his head back. She was gone, and he knew it. He just didn’t know I saw. It killed me to watch him at his lowest point. To see her fade broke him, never to be repaired. Their love story wasn’t unique, nor was it a miraculous story. Yet I find that is okay, the most rue love is found in the mundane. It is not a flashy anniversary present, or an expensive date. But the small moments, that is what they had. Walks through their meadow, their hidden kingdom only known to them and that was all that mattered. They would wake early in the morning and read together, the easy silence that not many are blessed with. That is what love is he taught me. To feel such comfort with someone you don’t need to always communicate. There is love in the silence, through looks. A quick smile and maybe a laugh, because you both know what the other is thinking. You are whole in one another. The flowers bloomed every spring, but without the care they died sooner than the sun could hit them. Tomas once watered and cared for them, but it was bleak now. I brought Michaél to try care for them yet Tomas wouldn’t allow it. He would not allow another pair of hands to touch them. It was a dark meadow now. Empty of any colour but grey allowing a thin blanket of fog to fall over it every night. It was only a matter of time until the great oak made its grave in the meadow. At that point the meadow would become its bleakest, no love in sight. I knew he had passed when I received the call in the night from my mother. She wasn’t grief ridden nor was she shouting like you see in the movies. We both knew it was coming but I still felt the pain. Like I had been hit in the stomach, a travelling pain that ricochets throughout the body. I went to the cottage a few days after to clear my mind, the long countryside drive under springs newly blossomed trees always brought me solace. When entering the home, I felt a sense of emptiness. Like it was no longer a home, but an empty field with no other purpose other than to exist. An eye sore on the beautiful horizon. I headed to the kitchen and ran my hand along the old dusty table. It was as I last saw it, an empty fruit bowl and old newspaper thrown on it. Looking out to the meadow I noticed the tree. It had fell further, almost ready to collapse. All other trees in the area had blossomed but the great oak had no leaves and its branches fell gracefully to the floor. That day Tomas sat under the tree, he beckoned me up. This was the first he initiated conversation with me in weeks, so I met his call without question. Sitting beside him under the tree he spoke to me and asked me. “Tell me, your husband, does he love you?” This came as a shock to me, what sort of question was it. “Of course,” I responded with. “Why do you ask?” “I once was young like you, cherish your memories dear, cherish them like nothing else because at the end that is all you will have. No money can give you memories, not real ones. If you love him and he loves you. Then you willy truly live.” He slowly rose using the trunk of the tree to rise. “To live is to love, ye to love is to die because once they are gone, the life you once knew is gone.” I thought he said this in sadness, but he was happy. He smiled at me and grabbed my hand. I grabbed his wrist and kissed his hand. “Grandad you’re tired, go back to bed.” It took me years to truly realise how right Tomas was, to live is to love and to love is to die, like his meadow. The flowers he grew were a sign of his love for Daisy, yet with her gone they died with her. The dying oak the last thing standing atop the meadow. As I walked through the meadow to reach the tree but came to a halt. A bright colour stood out amongst the grey. I walked over and leant down to gaze at the star amidst the fog. A daisy rose above the dirt, trying its hardest to grasp the sunlight. The last of the meadow holding on, waiting to fall. I walked away allowing it to fall gracefully not looking back at the bleak meadow, to preserve the memory of the daisy, of the sea of flowers, and the unbreakable love.