In sickness and IN HEALTH

Rachel Fawcett faced the hardest challenge of her life as she watched the man she loved disappear before her eyes

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Looking back on my life with Mark, I'll always feel lucky to have met him, to have shared part of life together, and to have been by his side through the toughest times. He showed me what a happy relationship looked like, and how it felt to be truly loved and cared for. They say the good ones are taken too soon, and that's definitely true of my Mark.

Some might think it's silly, but as soon as I saw his photo on the Plenty of Fish dating site in October 2014, I had an inkling that I'd marry him. Mark had recently retired from the Royal Navy, had three sons and was living 40 minutes away from my parents' home in Ashburton, where I was staying after the end of a relationship. At 6ft 2in, Mark was a gentle giant and after several months of dating, we got engaged.

Newly-weds

We set a date for April 2016, moving into our own home a week before our big day when we got married in a little church on Dartmoor. Then, after a three-day honeymoon in St Ives, we settled into life together which, for a time, was blissful.

We worked hard, Mark handling cash and valuables in transit and me working as a customer adviser at Riverford Organic Farmers, and in our downtime we enjoyed just being together.

It was August 2019 on a camping holiday with friends when our troubles began. Mark stumbled playing cricket but he got up and insisted he was fine. Over the next few months, though, his right foot gave him some trouble and he eventually agreed to see a physiotherapist.