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A million dreams - Dani Atkins


The random encounter with the stranger in the cemetery kept popping into my head over the next few days, and I cringed every single time I remembered how I’d behaved. Of course I would apologise if our paths ever crossed again, but I really hoped they didn’t. It felt weird knowing that a total stranger was the sole keeper of a secret I hadn’t yet shared with either my family or friends.
My hands stilled their work sorting out the early morning delivery of blooms from the nursery. The baby Tim and I had hoped for felt so close, all I had to do was reach out and pull it towards me. We had one last chance to make our dream a reality. Deciding to go ahead with the IVF by myself was both terrifying and exhilarating. A baby. A tiny human who would be half Tim, and half me. It was a tangible way for him to live on in my life, in more than just my heart and memories. I pulled up the tall stool at my workbench and sank shakily onto it. It was a huge decision, a life-changing decision, and making it alone had never been my intention.
I closed my eyes, knowing when I did the cool storeroom of the florist shop would disappear and I would once again be transported back to the oncologist’s office, hearing the news that would devastate our life and shatter the future we’d dreamt of. The ringing of the shop’s doorbell was a welcome intrusion as it jerked me out of the old memory I visited far too frequently.
‘Crazy Daisy’ had always been so much more than a business to me. It was something Tim and I had dreamt up and created together; at times from his hospital bed, or during the long days between treatments, when he’d not been well or strong enough to return to his teaching job. The shop felt like our child, our firstborn, and I was fiercely protective of it.
When Tim lost his fight to stay with me, when all I’d wanted to do was curl up in a ball of misery and join him, it was the shop that dragged me from my bed each morning. To abandon it felt like I’d be abandoning him. And that was something I would never do. Without Crazy Daisy, I doubt I’d have got through those first dark months of grief and despair. But now, five years on, I was ready to create one last piece of magic with the man I loved. It wouldn’t be easy. I knew that. I was going to worry that I was doing it all wrong every single minute of the day. Without Tim’s calming influence around to dial me down, I was probably going to be an absolute nightmare of a parent. And I could hardly wait to find out.


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