"Today is a day for double celebration. It is my 75th birthday and it also mine and Sheila's 5th wedding anniversary. Given all that has happened to me health-wise since my eleventh year of life when a large wagon ran over me and wrapped my body around its drive shaft, I would never have imagined that I'd ever reach 75 years of age. Given that I have been a man who has lived, loved and lost on a number of occasions in my life, to then go on and 'hit the jackpot' as I approached my eighth decade was simply unbelievable. That I would ever have been so lucky as to win the heart of the purest, kindest, unselfish, most beautiful women on God's fair earth at a time when retirement from romantic pursuit beckoned, is the best reason anyone could ever need to 'never give up!'
All my life, if ever any couple told me that they had disagreed but never argued I wouldn't have believed them. Although we are only five years into marriage, that assertion is true for us. Perhaps we haven't been wed long enough yet to experience this aspect of fading relationship, and if my terminal illness has anything to do with it, we never might never even get to the 'huff and puff' fall out stage, let alone beyond!
With all the truth in the world that I possess, I can honestly declare that I have never in the whole of my life been happier in the presence of one person than I am today with my wife, Sheila.
At the heart of life lie the relationships we have with other people; all special in their own way, but none so special for any man than the relationships he shares with the women in his life: his mother, sisters, sweethearts, wife and daughters.
The relationship one has with one's true love and soul mate, however, can never be surpassed. It is the very embodiment of mind, heart and soul, fused eternally when two chemical substances unite in lasting collision and transform the two into one shared moment of perfect existence. Finding our soul mate allows us to unpack all emotional luggage and to take off our masks that we once feared we could not live without, but now know we can no longer live within.
Every time I look at Sheila, I fall in love with her all over again. It is true that our last love is our best love and is the most enduring of loves. A very happy fifth wedding anniversary sweetheart. Bill x" William Forde: November 10th, 2017.