EDITOR'S CHOICE

since this is our Valentine's Day issue, indulge me as I tell you of the sweetest couple I've known. As a growing girl I had an Aunt Annie. She was the eldest of my mother's siblings, but the girliest, the giggliest and always eager-to-please. Every time we met, us she greeted us like we were lost and found after a decade. She cooked grand meals for us, her nieces and nephews. She and uncle Alex were the most in-love couple, I had ever seen in my young conventional life. They were always each other's shadow, one never far from the other. Happy in their lives together. Yes, sure, they fought, they had arguments. But the greater the fight, the deeper they fell in love.

They had no children of their own, but they doted on each other. Often days when he returned from work, he would put on a record and they would waltz around the room with us kids clapping and cheering them on delightedly.

She was always well-dressed, watched her weight, never had a grey hair on her head and never ate her lipstick. Uncle Alex the quieter of the two would smile adoringly at her, pander to her every whim happily. Movies were her favourite haunts and first day first show, a habit. Never mind how tired Uncle Alex returned from office, he had to look sharp and enjoy the movie. Whatever it took to make her happy.

There were moments of insecurity as I discovered. She once asked me to accompany her on what seemed like an innocuous walk down the street. It turned out she was following Uncle Alex to the office. Every time he crossed the road we hid behind a tree. Those were exciting days indeed! In my young mind then, Uncle Alex and Aunty Annie were at least 50 years old. And I couldn't understand how an ?old' couple like this could love each other so khulam-khula. I would have reprimanded my parents if they did! In fact, Annie and Alex had become a bit of a joke in our family. As youngsters we thought they were ?shameless'.

Years later, as they grew old (this time truly over 50), Auntie Annie died of a heart attack and my uncle, completely devastated took to the bed. As the funeral was leaving the house, some people, helped him bid her farewell. "I will see you within a month, Annie," he promised. And kept his word. In a month Alex had followed his beloved Annie to the other world.

A few days later as we sat around talking about the happy couple, a relative casually remarked, "It's a pity they didn't get married." I dropped my cup and my jaw. And here's the thing. Not only were they a live-in couple, they had been married earlier to different people. So strong was their commitment to the other that nothing, not society's conventions, not religion, nothing couldn't keep them apart. There was no force on earth that could keep them apart in life. And in death.

On Valentine's day this year, I will pop a bottle of champagne and toast my Aunt Annie and Unlce Alex, who no doubt will be having dinner for two on cloud nine somewhere.