Why “an eternal love”?

I’m going to tell you why.

My name is Maria. When I as twenty, I had to leave my parents and my twin sister. It was hard because we were very close.

But I had a good reason to leave my town, Oporto, and come in this beautiful country.

In fact, for two years, I’ve maintained a regular correspondence with a Portuguese boy who lived in France. He had seen my photo at my uncle’s, where he used to go every single day and when he asked who I was he began writing to me.

When I was twenty, he asked me to marry him, that’s to say, he wrote a letter to my parents asking the permission to marry me.

Of course, my parents asked me what I thought about it and when I told them that I accepted his request hey let me come to France to marry this young man who I only knew through letters and by photos.

I took my passport, I took my tickets and I picked up the train which took me to Paris, more precisely to the railway-station of the Nord, where he would be expecting me. He was impatient and so was I. We were finally going to meet personally.

It was a very particular meeting. As soon as I put my feet out of the train, our eyes seemed to touch. We look each other for a moment before falling on each other’s arms. It was a moment we will never forget.

In Paris, in the railway station of the East, we took another train till Reims. I went to my uncle’s and we saw each other every day. Three months later, after taking care of all the papers we needed. We got married just after Christmas. It was an unforgettable and joyful day for both of us.

Time went by and our love didn’t stop growing.

Two years later we went to Oporto on holidays. It was only then that my husband met my family. As he was from one of the Portuguese islands, he didn’t know the continent. So, my parents, my sister and my brother in law quickly took him to visit the entire region, specially the Nord, the most beautiful corner of the country.

After holidays, we returned home and we continued to live our beautiful life as a young couple in love.

We both worked in the same factory not far away from our house. Everything went for the best till the day we were informed that the factory was going to close.

My husband soon started to look for a job and when he found it we had to move.

On the other hand, I didn’t find a job as quickly as I wished and so I received an unemployment benefit. But what I really wanted was to work and that’s when I had the idea of putting an announcement in a newspaper. I’ve tried everything possible till the moment I was forced to quit this aim. Why? It’s simple: I was pregnant.

Our love was bigger each day and so our happiness. Moreover, we were going to have a baby.

The so waited day finally arrived: I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who filled us of joy. We had so much love to give to this fruit of our love. Since then our happiness was even bigger than till then.

The baby grows up and we learnt to see her discover new things. Each day was a surprise. But I think that all parents feel that.

But one day, a tragic day, my husband had a serious accident and the doctors told me he couldn’t work anymore.

That’s when I was forced to find a job. I needed to earn money. I wrote another announcement in a newspaper offering my services as a housekeeper.