To Love is To Share

When I took the courage to end my single life after almost 10 years of being a single parent, I was anxious, unsure, sceptical and wondered if it could be like the first love but only better. I thought we will only share our lives from the first day we met and never look back to our past but I was so wrong. To love a person you need to know their past then only you will learn how to love them in the future. Likewise it goes for us too if we are to be loved. Our partner needs to know about our past to treat us better and to love, otherwise how would he know that he has made our lives more joyful, given us more love than we had ever received before.

I have seen his humble beginnings, his childhood playground, his school when he was a young boy, his  college where he grew from a young boy to an adolescent. Finally last August he took me to see where he spent a great part of his life more than 30 years ago. He took me back to the United Kingdom. We started our 10 day trip in the UK in Brighton. Arrived in the late evening we immediately took a stroll by the seaside along the esplanade. Weather was quite cold for late August but still a lot of daylight left as it was still bright at 8pm. We simply walked the 2 km coastline along the esplanade.

The Esplanade

The 2nd day, we spent looking for his Brighton Technical College which he attended 35 years ago. We couldn't find it at first as the old building was kind of blackish in colour he said and this was what we saw now. 

Ex -Brighton Technical College

It is not a college anymore but a residential place, now that Brighton University is just close by and has taken over the role of the Brighton Technical College. Those days there were many Malaysians who received their Diploma from this Institute. He later made me walked the path from his College to his old house in Shaftesbury Road. The normal 20 minute walk according to him, took us more than 45 minutes. Ha ha ... the age has doubled so one can imagine.

The Route From Technical College (A) to home in Shaftesbury Road (B)

72, Shaftesbury Road house

 On the way home from College, he would pass the fire station and  the newsagent where he used to purchase his comics and later exchange them for the older comics. Both the fire station and the newsagent are still there though the owner of the newsagent might have been passed down to their descendants.

The newsagent on Clyde Road

He also read Civil Engineering at Sussex University in Sussex of course and he made his trip by train from the very same house in Brighton on a daily basis, a half hr train ride. Amazing enough the London Road station where he normally alights his train is just at the end of the street where he lived. He said when you literally here the train coming, you can still leave the house to catch the train to University. What an exciting life, I thought. So that day we revisited the past and took the train to Sussex University to see where this engineer graduated more than 30 years ago.

London Road Station in Brighton

I have never been to both Brighton and Sussex even during my 5 years in England. Maybe I had been to Brighton but not Sussex definitely. We strolled on the grounds of Sussex University, went into the University shop and bought a University sweat cardigan, had sandwiches for lunch there before heading back to the train station to head back to Brighton. Didn't go to the city cause he didn't have any memory of that city to share with me.

All through the day's trip he went on telling me the things he did , who his friends were of whom I knew personally but others I don't. It was good to see the excitement in him in sharing his past with me. We past the day simply enjoying our walks, stopping for more sandwiches and coffee. It's liveable as a  Muslim tourist in Brighton as there are 3 Muslim food outlets that we found. Spent two nights in Brighton and we left for London on the 3rd morning of the trip. It was a wet morning kinda sad saying goodbye as we aren't certain if Brighton would receive us again.

He finally shared this part of his life which was shut away from the hustle bustle of bringing up his family, with 'someone'. Only 30 years on he let the floodgates open. I knew that this trip was all about him and our new life together. May Allah bless me with many more years with him - a man who couldn't bear to see me carrying anything, even my handbag so he bought a bag pack to put my Bally handbag inside so he could carry it for me. :) funny yet I feel so blessed. Thank you Allah.