There is a small idea called the potato shoe theory. It suggests that real love is not about sparkle or noise. It is about comfort and steadiness. It is about a natural fit that feels lived in and true. When I think about my life with my husband, that idea feels right. It feels like us.

From the beginning he was my comfort. My familiar place. He stepped into my joys as if they were his own. He listened with attention that made everything in my world feel lighter. He cared in simple and quiet ways. He supported anything that made me happy and he did it with a kind of ease that never asked for anything back.

He challenged me too. Not to shape me into someone new but to help me live more fully as myself. The strength and courage were already mine. I always had them. I always knew what I carried inside me. What he did was draw it out in a way that made it real in my everyday life. He made space for my voice. He encouraged my clarity. He walked beside me as I stepped into the confidence that was already waiting in me.

Life with him was peaceful and full. We had a way of being that did not need explanation. It was the kind of companionship that made ordinary days feel complete. Our story lived in the quiet places. In the gentle understanding. In the steady presence that grew into a life.

Then dementia arrived. Slowly at first. Then with more certainty. I watched the man who once held so much clarity begin to lose pieces he never meant to let go. And I stayed beside him wanting to return the steadiness he once gave me so naturally. Wanting to help him in the ways he helped me. Wanting to lift him the way he lifted me through so many seasons.

There is grief in not being able to protect him from this. A grief that sits deep and calm, like a tide that never fully goes out. But there is love that continues. Love that grows stronger in the care. Love that holds him through confusion and silence and change. Love that remembers the man he is even when he cannot find his way back to himself.

He was my potato shoes. The familiar comfort I could live my whole life in. And now I give back to him the same gentleness he once gave me.

This is the soft story of us. Honest. Lasting. Still ours.

People keep telling me it is time. Time to think about rest home care. Time to start looking after myself. Time to let go a little.

I know they mean well. They see the tiredness in my eyes, the long days that stretch into longer nights. But they do not see what I see. They do not wake in the quiet hours and feel his hand searching for mine even in sleep. They do not see the way his face softens when I help him with his tea, or the small smile when a familiar song plays. They do not know what it is like to still see the person beneath the illness.

They see duty. I see love that still breathes. They see a man fading. I see the man who once made me laugh until I cried, who still looks for me when he feels lost.

I know what I want. I know what I need to do. I do not need to be told what is best. I am already living what is best for my heart, even when it is hard.

Sometimes I just want someone to sit with me. To listen as I think things through. Not to tell me what to do or how to feel, but to simply be there. To let me speak my truth without trying to change it.

I do not need a map. I know this road. I have walked every turn of it, and every ache too.

All I need is a lantern beside me, a small steady light that reminds me I am not walking it alone.

Today I worked in the garden. It was hot, the kind of heat that makes the air hum and the soil smell alive. The beds needed mulching, new planting, and trimming. Work that doesn’t wait.

I haven’t been out in the garden as much as I want to since his surgery. Things have been too challenging, and leaving him by himself feels too risky. So even this small return to the soil felt like a homecoming, a piece of myself I had missed.

I asked him to stay inside, safe from the sun and the risk of falling. I explained it carefully and patiently, why it mattered, why I just needed a few moments to finish things.  But explanations do not land the same way now. Words are harder for him to process, and the meaning slips away before it can settle. When I grow tired and he sees my frustration, he hears only rejection. He says quietly that he will go home, not understanding that he is already home. It is our familiar cycle, me trying to reason, him trying to belong, both of us a little heartbroken in between.

Still, I kept working. I finished what I could, took photos of the garden, the light, the new blooms, small proof of life still unfolding.

Then he came out to sit beside me on the deck, brushing his hand through the grass. He tried to lower himself to the ground, lost his balance, and rolled gently onto the deck like a small ball. For a moment I froze, then seeing he was not hurt, I laughed.

It burst out of me, that laugh, pure and real, almost like before.
I apologised right away, but he smiled and said it was all right. He laughed too.

It felt like a rare gift, laughter meeting where words could not. Because more and more, the words do not come. He searches for them, and I see the effort in his face, the pauses growing longer, the gap between thought and speech widening like a quiet river.

But sometimes it does not need words. Sometimes it is enough to sit side by side, to share a laugh, to touch the same patch of grass and just be.

Today, for a brief moment, we were simply two people still finding each other in the spaces between words.

It rained today not a storm, just that soft, steady kind of rain that hushes everything. I walked around the lake. No umbrella, no destination. Just me, the path, and the gentle rhythm of raindrops on leaves and water.

There’s something deeply comforting about walking in the rain, especially near the lake. The world goes still. Ducks huddle under shrubs. The surface of the water ripples, reflecting a sky blurred with grey. The usual voices, cars, chatter—they all fade. And for once, I can hear my own breath. My own thoughts.

Lately, life has been loud not with sound, but with strain. The kind that piles up in invisible layers. Managing medications. Watching for signs. Explaining again and again what day it is, where we are, why I can’t leave his side. The falls. The confusion. The weight of being everything for someone who is slowly disappearing.

I didn’t walk to escape. I walked to feel something else, something quiet and mine. The rain didn’t bother me. It settled on my coat and face like the gentlest of companions. It didn’t ask anything of me. It just fell.

As I rounded the far side of the lake, a bird startled from the reeds and took flight. I stood still. Watched it go. And something in me exhaled.

Sometimes people ask how I manage. The truth is, I don’t always know. But today, I walked around the lake in the rain. And that was enough.

When Love Feels Like War

Some days, I look at the man beside me and wonder where he’s gone.Not physically—he’s right there. But everything that once made him him—the humour, the gentleness, the spark in his eyes—has slowly been swept away.He gets angry now. Sometimes even aggressive. Words fly out that cut deep—sharper than anything he ever said when he was well. And I, the woman who vowed to love him in sickness and in health, sometimes feel like I’m caring for a stranger wearing my husband’s skin.

I don’t always get it right.I lose my patience. I cry with the tap running so no one hears. There are days I question if keeping those vows is still the right thing—because love isn’t supposed to feel like this. Like walking on eggshells. Like holding space for someone who forgets how to love me back.And yet—I stay.Because love, I’ve learned, isn’t always gentle. Sometimes it’s fierce. Messy. Gritted-teeth and tear-streaked relentless. And the strength it takes to keep showing up? That’s not the kind anyone claps for.But it’s the kind that keeps him safe. That keeps him here.

The Strength No One Sees

People tell me I’m strong.They see my smile and assume I’m coping.But they don’t see the cracks—the quiet ones. The kind that don’t make noise but leave me hollow by the end of the day.They don’t see me guiding him to the toilet because he can’t remember how. They don’t hear the arguments over nothing. They don’t feel the weight of coaxing him into the shower, or notice the small bruises I hide when confusion makes him lash out.And still, I doubt myself. I wonder if I’m doing right by him when all I feel is tired. When love feels more like endurance than joy.But I get up every morning.Not because I’m unbreakable—but because I broke, and I still chose to stay.That kind of strength? It’s quiet. It’s unseen. But maybe that’s what makes it real.

And maybe that’s what keeps both of us going.

The Night That Won’t Let Go

It’s been weeks since that night he went missing but the fear hasn’t left me.

I still feel it in my chest, like a knot that won’t loosen. I still hear the sound of the door opening. The silence that followed. The moment I realised he was gone.

I did everything I could—installed sensor mats, a Ring camera, a GPS watch that’s supposed to track him. I thought I had created a fortress of safety. But dementia doesn’t respect boundaries. It slips through cracks and disappears into the night, taking your peace with it.

That night was terror. The kind that leaves you cold long after the danger has passed. And it haunts me still. Even now, when I don’t see him in the room, even for a second, my heart races. I check every corner. I look out the window. I replay every step. I don’t relax anymore. I just manage.

And then comes the anger.

I know it isn’t fair. I know he doesn’t understand what he’s putting me through. But sometimes I look at him, and the frustration rises. He doesn’t see the life I’ve had to press pause on. He doesn’t see how tired I am, how alone I feel in this—even when people are kind. He doesn’t see that every day I juggle decisions, finances, medical forms, routines, all while pretending I’ve got this under control.

He doesn’t know that the future I once imagined—growing old together, travelling, doing the small things like reading beside each other—is gone. That I grieve not just him, but us. The version of us that’s slowly being erased.

And what hurts most is that I can’t even be angry at him. He didn’t choose this. Neither did I. But I live in it. Every day.

There are moments I hold it all in so tightly—because what would happen if I didn’t? And then there are moments like this, when the tears fall as I write, and I let myself say the truth:

I’m exhausted.
I’m afraid.
I’m heartbroken.
And yes—sometimes, I’m angry.

Even now
with memory fading like mist in the morning sun,
with words tangled,
and moments slipping away as soon as they come
he is still that man.

The man who reaches for his wallet when we’re at the checkout, because he’s always been the one to provide.

Even now, he tries not because he remembers the routine,but because deep inside, he still wants to care for me.

The man who used to bring me coffee in bed in the morning —
even if it meant spills down the hallway, even if I gently had to take that job back
because it was always his way of starting our day with warmth.

The man who notices the rubbish bins out on the curb and says, “Sorry I didn’t bring those in.” Even if they haven’t been emptied yet.
Because he still wants to protect, still wants to do his part.

The man who asks if I’m sitting next to him.
Who needs to see me, feel me near. Because even if he forgets my name, he knows where he feels safe.

Sometimes he asks, “What can I do for you?” And my heart tightens, because he doesn’t really know how anymore. But he still wants to.

That’s the kind of man he is.

Not perfect. Not sharp and strong like before.
But still reaching. Still loving.
Still him.

Dementia has taken so much: his words, his memory, his understanding of time.

But it hasn’t taken this:
his desire to love, to serve, to show up for me in the ways he remembers.

And so I remind myself , especially on the hard days,
that I’m not just caring for a man with dementia.

I’m loving a man who still, deep down, is the same one who’s always loved me.

Not in grand ways now. But in small, persistent, deeply human ways.

A hand held.
A seat beside me.
A bin brought in too early.
A wallet offered at the till.
A heart that still wants to be mine.

Through the fog, he is still that man. And I will love him through every moment of remembering and forgetting.

Some people don’t need an audience to do the right thing. They’re not loud about it. They don’t look for praise. They just live their lives with quiet decency — steady, kind, and thoughtful. He’s one of them.

After a major earthquake, during one of the many aftershocks, we were talking on the phone. He was away on a business trip, four hours from home. I told him I was fine — and I was — just tired, like everyone else, trying to stay steady.

But at 1 a.m., there was a knock on the door.

He had left early and driven through the night, through disrupted roads and aftershocks, just to be near me. Not because I asked. Not because I was in distress. But because he didn’t want me facing it alone.

Another time, a jolt in the night woke us. The light fitting above our bed was swaying. Without a word, he shifted closer and placed himself between me and the ceiling — just in case. It wasn’t grand. Just instinct. Just care.

Years ago, when I was working overseas with a non-profit in a rural village, an elderly local woman was hit by a motorbike. She needed surgery, and we had almost nothing to work with — not enough blood, not enough funds. Late that night, after I returned exhausted and heavy-hearted, he called. He somehow sensed something was wrong. I told him everything. His response was simple: “Use the money we set aside. That’s what it’s there for.”

He once hired a young immigrant — bright, capable, educated — but overlooked for years and working in the kitchen of a café. He saw her potential immediately. Hired her. Believed in her. That opened doors. When people later asked how he knew, he just shrugged and said, “Because more people need someone to believe in them.”

Even now, long after he’s stepped away from work, people still come to him. They seek his advice, his opinion, or just a listening ear. They don’t come out of habit. They come because they trust him.

And then there are the quiet, tender moments — when he sees me lost in thought and asks, “Do you miss your parents? Maybe we could fly you over to see them… or bring them here?” I remind him they’re gone. He lowers his eyes, a little embarrassed. But in that forgetfulness is a love that’s still trying to ease my sorrow.

He isn’t perfect. But he is good. Solid. Kind in ways that are easy to miss if you’re not paying attention — but unforgettable if you are.

The world often overlooks men like him.

It shouldn’t.

Because the world needs more like him.