One of the best things in life is to find someone who loves you. Another thing is to find people who so clearly love each other.
We see signs of that love everywhere and some are even kind enough to leave mementos for others to join in the experience. One way they do this is by leaving notes on benches, scribbling on the bark of trees in the park, etc. It can be quite easy to skim over or miss a sweet love note scribbled on a bench, but for some reason, this note was not missed.
Brian, a devoted husband has chosen to remind people of the magical nature of love.
After baring his heart out and sharing the content publicly for people to see, there was no way anyone could have skimmed it over or ignored it.
This is a love story like no other. Brian Holmes met his wife Kay at a Christmas party. According to him, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She had auburn hair and a stunningly beautiful face and her eyes were just amazing. They seemed to call on him and he answered.
While he was watching her from afar and thinking of ways to get to know her better, he didn’t know she was doing the same thing and trying to get a read on him. Brian was so sure that his advances would be well-received.
Boy, was he wrong!
Kay disliked him from the first day. She didn’t like his guts and thought he was too cocky.
On Brian’s part, after speaking to Kay, he decided she was too quiet and stuck up. It looked like things had already ended before they began.
However, Brian was determined to make something out of the experience. Those eyes were still calling on him.
After a rocky start, Brian was finally able to charm Kay and get her to warm up to him. However, he still wasn’t satisfied.
Brian decided to ask her out on a date. Their first date was a brunch date that turned into a day-long excursion. After a light meal of two battered sausages, chips, and a can of coke, they spent the entire day just talking and enjoying each other's company.
Brian was pretty smitten. It was a humble first date but the beginning of something beautiful.
After getting to know him, Kay liked his sense of humor. They both laughed about how hard he was trying when he first met her.
Brian thought that he had found his soulmate and everything was going to be perfect.
Things were really heating up between the happy couple. During a weekend getaway, Kay stopped by a jewelry store where she fell in love with a vintage emerald ring. She told Brian that if he ever did propose to her, the ring he picked had to be something like that.
The next day, Brian returned to the store and bought the ring. Things were going perfect, or so he thought.
Unbeknownst to Brian, while he was mentally creating his happily ever after with Kay, the universe had other plans for him. One day he woke up, as usual, waiting to meet the love of his life but instead, what he got was a big blow.
The love of his life had vanished, seemingly into thin air.
Apparently, Kay was experiencing some things with her family that she never made known to Brian. Then, suddenly she just packed her things and left - without saying a word to him. Brian tried all he could to find Kay but he couldn’t.
He was devastated. This was not the forever plan they had created.
Then one year after they drifted apart, he got the devastating news that Kay had already moved on. She had married someone else and they already had their first child together.
He was inconsolable. The universe was working so hard to keep them apart and Brian was convinced that they were never meant to be together.
After pining after her and what could have been for a year, Brian finally met another woman and fell in love. He decided to throw in his all and forget about Kay.
He got married and gave the universe a big middle finger for messing with him. Unknown to him, the universe did have more in stock for him.
After years had passed, Brian was finally opening his heart to love again. He was feeling happy for his life because of his wife and his two lovely children. And that was when disaster struck again and his wife passed away.
Brian felt alone again after a very long time. He was so heartbroken and didn’t see how things would be any better. Until his life made a crazy turn.
After Brian’s wife died, he searched for Kay. After 7 years of being apart, he finally found her and discovered she had also become widowed. He sent her a card with his phone number.
After chatting for a while, they rekindled the old flame. Brian decided to give it another chance.
Brian drove 500 miles to visit her, stopping only for gas. He had millions of thoughts of the things that he wanted to talk to her about. When he finally got to see her again in person, he forgot about everything else.
They sat there for a whole day just talking about life and remembering good old days and the things that they use to like and hate, about their families and children. It was like they were never apart.
Brian didn’t want to give life another opportunity to steal Kay from him, so he promptly proposed to her with the same emerald ring he bought years back.
It was perfect.
Brian and Kay got married and joined their families together, including the children from their other marriages. All of them were Brian and Kay's world.
Everything was going pretty smoothly. They had too much lost time to make up for.
As a way to celebrate, the entire house decided to go on a vacation to Spain. They searched for places they would love to visit and activities that would help the family bond better.
They were looking forward to enjoying their first trip together.
Just before the family was due to set off, Kay noticed a lump on her body. Brian asked her to get it checked out before they went on the trip, but she insisted on doing it after they got back.
Everyone, especially Brian, was hoping that it wouldn’t be anything serious. But a surprise was waiting for them.
Meanwhile, Kay knew that there was something very serious about the lump, but she didn’t want to ruin their vacation. So she lied to Brian about her health and said that the lump was gone.
She acted like she was fine and they eventually went on holiday.
On the trip, Brian noticed that Kay was not feeling as good as she claimed. In fact, she looked like she was getting worse.
So they cut their trip short and took her to the hospital for a diagnosis. That was when they discovered that she had advanced-stage cancer.
Even though she was receiving treatments, Kay’s health continued on a steady decline. A year after her diagnosis, she started having really bad back pain which was initially dismissed before they pushed for scans. The state of her health was really getting to her and she was beginning to feel down. Brian and their children did everything to make it easy for her.
They would have a gathering every night to make jokes and tell her stories. Somehow, they managed to find a routine, but it was shaky at best.
After being diagnosed with breast cancer, things stayed relatively under control for about 6 years. However, just before the pandemic hit, things hit a decline and started to get worse, beginning with Kay having a blood clot.
The subsequent lockdown only seemed to make things trickier. But they were still hopeful that she was going to defeat cancer.
Kay would get bone injections every eight or six weeks. But despite all of these challenges, she got through everything with a smile and never complained about anything.
Nobody knew how she did it, least of all Brian. All he knew was that if there was a way to make her feel better, he would not hesitate to give it to her.
By this time, Kay had declined so badly that she could hardly walk. She was confined to a wheelchair and couldn’t leave the house.
It was already the end of the year and somehow, they were already getting used to the idea that that could be Kay’s last year with them. Brian decided to do something special for her and planned a date with her. They visited South end seafront together for the last time.
Even though the end was close, Kay always wanted to get through Christmas Day, which. coincidentally, was also her birthday. On that Christmas, they went all out.
Despite Kay being unwell in the day, it was the perfect Christmas. The family came together, laughing and joking all through the evening. They shared and opened their presents. Kay sat in the corner and watched everyone laughing with a smile on her face.
Unfortunately, that was Kay’s last Christmas. After a hard-fought battle, Kay left this world and created a big chasm in the hearts of her beloved.
She was laid to rest with a heartwarming ceremony from family, friends, and well-wishers. Brian wanted her to always be remembered as the one-of-a-kind woman she was.
A few weeks later, Brian found a drawer full of pictures, scrapbooks, and messages Kay had left for them all. He had no idea where she found those photos or when she had the time or energy for it, but she left things for everyone, including her friends and kids.
She never thought about herself alone, she always thought about others.
On the couple's anniversary, Brian decided to share Kay’s memory with the rest of the world. He headed down to Epping’s bench - where he drew a heart onto the bench for everyone to see.
Then he wrote a note to explain why he left the etching of the heart behind.
The note said: “This heart is for my wife, mummy, and a best friend who lost her battle to cancer and to the rest of the people who lost their battle”. Kay and Brian’s story resonated with so many people and it quickly went viral.
Theirs was a love that transcended time, location, and space. A forever kind of love that everyone wished to have.