NeuroDivine

Some love stories are written in grand gestures.

Ours has been written in endurance.

This Valentine’s Day, I honour fifteen years of partnership with Andrew—and ten years of civil marriage later this year—not because the dates fall now, but because love that has lived this much deserves to be named whenever the heart nudges.

Our story hasn’t been tidy.

It has held HIV that never frightened him, kidney failure that reshaped our days, redundancies, uprooting, a move to Gibraltar, and the long road home again.

It has held packing and unpacking, losing and gaining, and the strange abundance that comes from starting over with more than we expected—more books, more memories, more courage, more cats, more life.

And now it holds Andrew’s recent diabetes—another shift, another learning curve, another place where we steady one another. We’re navigating it together, the way we always have: with humour, patience, and the quiet understanding that bodies change, but love keeps pace.

Through every season, Andrew’s love has been steady, unflinching, and quietly brave.

The kind of love that sits through hospital nights, that holds hope when mine frays, that makes tea at sunrise, that laughs in the kitchen, that builds a home out of gentleness and persistence.

Neurodivine love is not perfect love.

It is faithful love—love that adapts, learns, listens, stays.

Love that makes room for difference, for fragility, for healing, for becoming.

So today, before the anniversaries arrive, I give thanks for the grace that has carried us this far.

For the covenant we keep renewing in the ordinary.

For the cats curled at our feet.

For the life we’ve built, not despite the hard things, but through them.

And for Andrew—

whose steadfastness has been one of the clearest sacraments in my life.

Through years of light and shadow,
through fear and fierce delight,
your love has held its compass
and kept the long road bright.
When sickness tried to name me,
you answered without fear;
your steadfast heart became the
strong pulse that drew me near.

Love that walks beside us,
weathered, tried, and true;
Love that keeps its promise—
Andrew, this is you.
Fifteen years of mercy,
ten of wedded grace;
God has dwelt among us
in every time and place.

When kidneys failed and futures
felt fragile, thin, or torn,
you stayed through every vigil,
each night that blurred to morn.
And now your own new journey,
with diabetes’ claim,
we meet it side by side as
our love learns, all the same.

Love that walks beside us…

We crossed the seas to Gibraltar,
then found our way back home;
through packing up and starting
again with more to own.
Redundancies and heartache,
the questions no one plans—
yet still we shaped a household
with gentle, open hands.

Love that walks beside us…

And in the warmth of kitchens,
your gifts have fed our days—
the casseroles for comfort,
the pies that speak your praise.
You taught me gentle patience
with pancakes on the pan;
in every meal you offer,
I taste the heart you span.

Love that walks beside us…

And in the quiet evenings,
our cats curled at our feet,
we learned that love is mostly
the small things, soft and sweet.
A cup of tea at sunrise,
a shoulder when I break,
the laughter in the kitchen,
the peace we daily make.

Love that walks beside us…

So now we stand remembering
the road that brought us here —
the vows renewed in living
through every passing year.
If grace has any language,
it sounds like you and me;
a covenant of courage,
a shared fidelity.

Love that walks beside us,
weathered, tried, and true;
Love that keeps its promise —
Andrew, this is you.
Fifteen years of mercy,
ten of wedded grace;
God has dwelt among us
in every time and place.

Text copyright 2026.