By 10.30 this morning I was walking in the sunshine on the award winning Avon Beach in Highcliffe under a pale blue sky, smelling that fresh beachy smell and marvelling at the sound of the waves against the shore. Surely this would be a perfect start to anyone’s day.

I felt so glad to be alive. For me, all I really need is the sound of the sea, the taste of the salty air, and the fresh breeze in my face and I feel like my soul has come home. I was brought up in Bournemouth and my love for the sea grows ever stronger.

As I walked on the sand and crunched on the pebbles and found a wall to sit on with my coffee to watch the beauty in front of my eyes, I so wished that my dad, who I was about to go and visit would stay alive long enough to enjoy the pleasure of spring and even summer in this wonderful place with my mum.

Dad is dying. He has last phase kidney failure, and mostly everything else is failing too. He and mum have been married for 54 years. That’s a very long time.

She does not want him to leave her. He doesn’t want to leave. He said that all he can do when she cries is cuddle her and kiss her and tell her how much he loves her and always has. He is in pain physically and mentally. Neither are anywhere near ready to let each other go and yet they simply don’t have a choice.

To watch their love for each other touches every part of me in so many different ways. She has been completely devoted to him and looked after him because he is her greatest treasure in life. He has always loved her, needed her, and looked after her all of his life. This kind of love, that has weathered every storm you can possibly imagine over 50 plus years of marriage, is getting rarer and is a testament to their commitment and devotion to each other.

I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like to spend 50 years with a soul mate and even though I fully intend to live to 105, I still may never have the opportunity now for such longevity.

These two people, totally unextraordinary in every way except in their love for each other, put each other first every step of the way. Their love shut out the world far and near and kept them in a bubble in which they existed only for each other.

Watching their pain at the thought of being parted was almost unbearable. For him listening to her struggling to get him to agree to more prodding and probing and invasive treatment and dialysis is emotionally very hard. Physically and mentally he can’t cope with any more being 'done' to him. And he understands what she wants. But she can’t understand his reluctance to do what he can to help himself to a slightly better quality of life. And today for the very first time I saw them both as a couple, very much like the ones who come to my consulting room. The stalemate of ‘if only you would…. Then we could….’ against ‘ I cant’ do that/be that’ so please don’t make me – even though I love you”. The same battle and the same struggle of having to separate the fact that we love each other but sometimes our behaviours really do impact our partners and sometimes, they are irreconcilable.

So I think what I am trying to say here is for the first time today I really saw the triumph and the tragedy of real love. I saw that it really matters little how you live your life, if you make money, lose money, keep your reputation, work hard, make weird and not so wonderful choices. At its end, the quality of your life is measured by the amount of love you give and the amount of love you receive. If one person is loved by just one person as fiercely and passionately as these guys love each other, well you know what, for what its worth, I think that is a life well lived.

From my heart to yours,

Love Francine