A couple of months ago, we travelled to Savannah, Georgia.

Savannah has one of the most beautiful cemeteries. Early in the morning, the light pours in, and the chirping of birds and the wind moving through the trees echo all around. Savannah seems at peace with its own past. It hasn’t tried to erase anything; it has accepted everything and preserved it as part of its culture and history. That’s why it’s easier to express what’s inside you there.

The smell of moss and dampness rose from between the graves, and each grave stood close beside another. Statues could be seen throughout the cemetery, and each of them seemed to be telling a story—about themselves or about the families they belonged to.

Most of the graves were family plots. A thin line of brick had been laid around them, and the family name was written on it. In many of them, even those bricks had not yet been placed.

While I was there, I looked at my husband and said: this man is truly someone I would want to die beside when I’m at home with him—and to be buried next to him.

I have to say—if you truly love someone, deeply and honestly, Savannah is the kind of place where you take them to tell them so.

And I did. I told him how much I loved him. I told him that before I met him, I had never loved anyone like that.

I didn’t have many interactions with men for most of my life. I was usually too busy surviving. The men I encountered were often controlling, shallow, or painfully self-absorbed. Small in spirit, and sometimes cruel. I know that certain cultures and environments raise men like that.

But the man I fell in love with—the first man I ever truly loved—was none of those things.

He carried a kind of innocence in him. He never lied to me, and he never tried to intimidate or threaten me. Sometimes it honestly felt like he had arrived from another planet. Whatever he had, he gave freely. Whatever love he felt, he expressed openly. And to me, that kind of sincerity was rare.

So yes—if life has been unkind to you, wait. The right person may still appear.

Savannah was simply the place where I told him all of this again… probably for the thousandth time.

He feels like someone from my own tribe, as if we were somehow raised in the same village—even if only telepathically.

People like my husband don’t come along often. They’re rare.

And the more you’ve suffered at the hands of the wrong people in the past, the more fiercely you hold on to—and protect—the right one when they finally arrive.

The rest of the city felt the same. It was calm, almost hibernating, and cosy. Everyone smiled. It felt as if people there were at peace with the idea of life and death. Unlike Charleston, Wilmington, or Madison, this was a city whose air I actually wanted to breathe.