The Butterfly Garden

Again I’m standing in my garden of memories. Each memory is like a butterfly, swirling around my head. I feel like I want to catch them all. I will always need my memories of Charlotte. I still want her in my life.

But today I can’t see any of the memories up close. It all looks a blur. So I sit on a bench in the garden, until I feel the sun on my face, and then I try again. As ever, it is Charlotte’s smile that catches my eye. She is always so beautiful.

She’s humming to herself, holding a paintbrush, and then I realise this memory is from when we first moved in together. We rented a ground-floor flat in Clifton Village, that we couldn’t really afford, because it had its own garden and was in a lush location.

We’d waited 3 years to move in together, because Charlotte didn’t want to break up her friendship group by moving out of her previous house. I spent a year living in a studio flat down the road from her flat, playing guitar and writing songs, waiting for Charlotte to come around.

Now here we are, finally living together, and Charlotte has pestered the landlord into letting us paint the spare room walls, and drill holes for a curtain rail, and get the TV aerial fixed. But she’s scared of the drill, she doesn’t know how to get the aerial replaced, and she has no idea how to decorate the walls.

“Are you sure we need to put all this tape around the edges?” she asks me. “It’s taking you ages. Can we not just get on with it?”

I sigh, and we have the same discussion, that we already had this morning, about how to paint a room.

Later we start to put the flat-pack furniture together in our new living room. Charlotte hovers behind me, tutting, while I read the instructions and lay out all the different screws. Then she keeps grabbing the wrong pieces of wood, and holding them up the wrong way.

In the end, she retreats to the kitchen, and she makes us both a cup of tea. Then she comes back and tells me how irritating it is to find out that she’s very bad at building flat-pack furniture.

I offer to teach her, but she says: “God no, I’m bored of this now. I’m going out to the shops, I want to buy something nice for our dinner!”

As the months go by, we will go shopping together for pictures, kitchenware, plant pots, ‘bathroom knick-knacks’ and decorative lighting. We’ll sort out the garden so Charlotte can grow herbs, potatoes, courgettes, and then colourful flowers in her hanging baskets.

We’ll tease each other about who’s turn it is to open the bedroom shutters, or cook dinner, or do the washing up. I will propose to her, on bended knee, in our living room, after carrying the ring in my pocket through our date-night in Charlotte’s favourite local restaurant.

We will plan our wedding here, and discuss when to have our first child. We’ll book house viewings, and try to work out how we can save enough money for a mortgage. Eventually we’ll move out, into the house Charlotte chose for starting our family. The home I still live in, and share with our lovely daughter, Emily.

And even now, in this future I never asked for, as the many memories are swirling around me, I can still see the love in Charlotte’s eyes, and the warmth in her smile.

I will always be thankful for the wonderful days we shared. And so very sad that our time together had to end.

Here is a song that I wrote and recorded for Charlotte, back when I was waiting for her to move in with me. It’s called ‘Every step of the way’ and I know Charlotte very much enjoyed it.

I hope you do too.

~

‘Every step of the way’

Lyrics to ‘Every step of the way’

~

We live in a fire,

Too long in the fire,

How many times have we said,

We need to start again…

~

Until we find the feeling,

You give me the feeling,

Now I’m not afraid anymore,

I’ll help you start again…

~

I’ll be here when you need me,

All the rest of your days,

Each beautiful feeling,

Every step of the way.

~

True love is a secret,

You give me the secret,

And I’ll give you everything I have,

I’ll help you start again…

~

I’ll be here when you need me,

All the rest of your days,

Each beautiful feeling,

Every step of the way.

~

And I won’t change my mind,

And I won’t walk away,

I will stay by your side,

Always…

~

And I’ll be here when you need me,

All the rest of your days,

Each beautiful feeling,

Every step of the way

~

Oh I’ll be here when you need me,

All the rest of your days,

Each beautiful feeling,

Every step of the way.

~

I’ll be here when you need me,

All the rest of your days,

And the truth is I need you,

Every step of the way.

~

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