Quiet Places Hold Things Longer
We were supposed to drive to Triglav National Park, but instead we chose to descend. South, toward Zagreb. Not because we didn’t want more rivers or hikes — we did — but because reality tapped us gently on the shoulder. Triglav would have meant an extra day. And we were still far from our final destination in Croatia. With the news of our engagement sitting warm and impatient between us, we realised we wanted to arrive a little earlier than planned. To tell my family in person. To celebrate with them. To let the moment land where it belonged.
So I opened Google Maps and started tracing alternatives between Bled and Zagreb. Slower routes. Softer exits. Eventually, a small dot appeared — a town with a castle sitting in the middle of a lake. It felt like a compromise that wasn’t a compromise at all. A way to avoid long hours of driving straight into Zagreb, and also a way to delay saying goodbye to Slovenia, which we had come to love more than expected.
We drove down to a small town called Otočec and found free parking beside a cemetery.
I know how that sounds. But in Europe, parking next to cemeteries is often the best option. Safe. Spacious. Quiet. Free. Far from traffic and noise. There were houses nearby, lights on, curtains half drawn. I figured if we weren’t disturbing the living, we certainly wouldn’t be disturbing the dead.
The town felt quaint and tranquil. Almost suspended. It reminded me of my hometown — a rural corner of paradise, the kind of place where nothing remarkable ever seems to happen. Once parked, we took the clothes out again to dry a little more — yes, still damp — and headed out for a short walk as the sun began to sink.
As evening settled in, the town grew even quieter. A few people appeared here and there, but no one smiled back. Of course. We had grown accustomed to the warm, restrained Slovenian hospitality by then. We walked alongside the cemetery and turned left onto a narrow road with no sidewalks. It felt harmless. Empty. I walked confidently in the middle of the road.
I was wrong.
The first car came quickly. Then another. And another. That was our cue. We squeezed ourselves as close to the edge as possible and kept walking. After about five minutes, the road opened onto a wooden bridge spanning the Krka River.
The water below was still, almost glassy. A few fishermen stood just beneath the bridge, leaning casually, rods lowered, quietly chatting while waiting for luck to choose them. The sky was fading into pink and soft orange. Cypresses and pines framed the riverbanks, their silhouettes growing darker by the minute. Willows dipped toward the water. Reeds swayed gently at the edges. A family of swans drifted through the scene, perfectly unbothered.
Nature was the main character.
We were just lucky spectators.
We stood there for a while, thinking about how little it takes for beauty to feel complete. Love. Stillness. A place that doesn’t try too hard. Cars grew fewer. The day exhaled.
That’s when my phone rang.
It was my cousin Samy. He’s like a younger brother to me. I’m seven years older, and I’ve watched him grow through every version of himself. He stayed with me for two months when I lived in Cape Town — one of those periods that lodge themselves permanently in your memory. I picked up the video call. He was cooking at his girlfriend’s place. His first serious relationship. Seeing him like that still makes my heart swell.
I turned the camera toward the river, the swans, the sky.
He laughed and said,
“Wow, Mo, this is so romantic. You’re not proposing, are you?”
I pinched Mo gently in the stomach — a silent don’t you dare. We both laughed, nervously. Samy didn’t suspect a thing. He thought he was teasing, putting Mo on the spot. Mo leaned into it immediately.
“Putting me on the spot like that? You’ll make us fight. I’ll have to sleep in the cemetery tonight.”
We laughed it off and changed subject.
We stayed on the call, casual and unguarded. Talked about who cooks better, their routines, life in Bolzano. They asked about our trip, and we shared everything — except the one thing that mattered most. That would wait another week. Samy and I slipped into childhood memories. His girlfriend and Mo listened, smiling, occasionally adding stories of their own. The kind of conversation that stretches without effort.
We walked back toward the campervan while still on the phone. Dusk thickened quickly, and the forest surrounding us felt suddenly more present. After the fox incident, neither of us felt adventurous enough to linger. Bears weren’t exactly on my list of desired encounters.
Back at the campervan, Mo collecting the clothes from outside while I started dinner. I stayed on the phone with Samy as I cooked, unwilling to cut the thread just yet. I made a farro salad — Tropea onion, garlic, olive oil, chilli flakes, tuna, chickpeas, and black olives. Simple. Filling. Familiar.
When dinner was ready, we said goodbye to Samy and his girlfriend and sat down to eat.
Quietly.
Gratefully.
What He Carried Long Before Me
Recalling memories of the past with Samy on the phone felt like opening a door. After dinner, Mo and I kept talking — about where we come from, about families, about the things that don’t usually surface unless invited gently. That’s when he finally spoke about his father.
It wasn’t the first time the topic came up. He had mentioned him before, briefly, carefully. He never shut it down completely, but he never lingered either. There was always a formality in the way he spoke about his family, and especially about his father — a precision with words, as if one wrong sentence might misrepresent the truth. Or expose too much of it.
Mo’s father fell ill almost two years ago. None of his three children understood how serious it was. His mother mentioned it once. Just once. No one pressed. No one imagined the scale of it. Until one day, everything collapsed at once. Now he lies in a semi-conscious coma — suspended somewhere between presence and absence.
My mother often tells me I should ask to visit him, since he is in Mo’s family house. But I never do. They never invited me. And I don’t want to ask. I ask about him. I mention him sometimes. But I can’t bring myself to cross that line.
I don’t know exactly what holds me back. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s respect. Maybe it’s the sense that this is something deeply private, something that does not belong to me, and that stepping into it uninvited would feel like a violation. My mother points out that they’ve changed nurses many times, that even his mother’s friends help with his care — so why would my presence be intrusive?
I don’t have a rational answer.
I just feel differently.
And so I stay on the threshold.
When Mo began to speak about his father, resentment came first. Not gently. Not apologetically. He resented his father for never stepping fully into his role as the family’s leader. For refusing stability when his business began to fail. For rejecting a regular job while his wife carried the weight — working harder, stretching herself thinner — until the company shut down and the structure holding everything together finally gave way.
“Pride,” Mo said. Simply.
He described his father as someone who seemed passive toward life. Toward everything. Joy or disaster, milestones or losses — all met with the same neutral expression. But passivity is rarely emptiness. Repression has a shape. A cost. Over time, what is not felt does not disappear; it relocates. Mo believes his father absorbed too much, quietly, until the psychological pressure found a physical outlet. The body collapsed where the voice never spoke.
And yet — as much as Mo resented his father, he resented himself more.
For not seeing.
For not insisting.
For not trying harder to understand him while there was still time.
He knows some things would never have changed. Their visions of life clashed. They were fundamentally different. But he is still his father. And Mo wishes he had been more present, more generous, more patient.
He told me about his sister’s wedding. How he bought himself a new suit and let his father wear one of his old ones. It didn’t fit properly. It looked tired. Out of place. That memory still returns, uninvited. He calls it selfishness. I see it as youth colliding with responsibility before it knows how to respond.
Since his father fell ill, everything shifted.
Mo spends more time with his family now, especially his mother. She is lonely. Her husband is no longer fully there, and her home has turned into a place of constant care — two full-time nurses, six people living in a two-bedroom apartment. Life compressed. Privacy dissolved. At least there is his sister’s baby — a small, breathing light moving through the rooms.
His brother Zizo is steady, reliable, deeply attentive to their mother. His sister Sonia, despite working full time and raising a one-year-old, helps constantly. They carry each other. Without drama. Without denial.
Listening to Mo, something settled inside me. God gifted me not only a husband, but a family — one built on care rather than noise, on presence rather than performance. Their hearts are clean. And Mo — with all his contradictions — has a soul of gold. I know he will protect me. I know he will try. Even when it’s hard. Especially then.
That night, I let him talk. I only asked questions when needed. I didn’t share my own story — even though resentment toward a father who is not cruel, not violent, not openly abusive is a language I know well.
Because calm, smiling men are often mistaken for good fathers. Who notices the damage done through absence? Through never stepping up, never guiding, never protecting. Through being present for the easy moments and invisible for the difficult ones. You can scream for their attention. You will only push them further away. You can do everything right. They will never give enough.
They drain your mother’s patience, resilience, and care — because she must compensate for everything they refuse to carry. They may never strike, never shout, never intend harm — and still leave chaos behind.
I know this type of man.
And even if you forgive, even if you let go of anger, even if time softens the edges — they gave you too little to hold onto. Not enough memories. Not enough protection when it mattered. Not enough love to anchor devotion.
You grow up and realise that hating your father only harms you. So you choose respect over rage. Courtesy over resentment. You accept who he is. You may even care for him in old age, when regret finally finds him.
But you never grow fond of him.
Love belongs to the parent who was there.
Always.
We slept deeply that night.
The Morning After Yes
We woke up rested and close, our bodies still carrying the quiet of the night before. I lingered on our conversation, replayed it gently, grateful for the intimacy of it. And yet, something inside me remained unsettled.
I wasn’t madly happy.
Not yet.
The proposal had shifted something deep and structural. This wasn’t just romance anymore; it was commitment in its rawest form. Choosing a man for life. Choosing to respect him, honour him, care for him, love him—not just when it’s easy, but when it’s hard. And because we both want children, this choice suddenly carried weight in very concrete terms.
We’re not struggling, but we’re not secure either. We can take care of ourselves, yes. But adding another human to the equation—let alone two—changes everything. Right now, it’s clear that I need to keep working two jobs. Mo’s salary isn’t enough for both of us. So what happens when children arrive?
Do I work full time, take care of the kids, manage the house, and quietly let go of my hobbies? Do I accept a life constantly orbiting his family home, being dragged there so someone else can step in, while he doesn’t have to worry? We had just fought about how much time he spends there. Does he believe children magically solve that? Or do they simply cement existing patterns?
I knew I was spiralling. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself. But the fears were real.
I want to marry him. I want children with him. I had just imagined we would reach that place from firmer ground. With more clarity. With answers to basic questions: where will we live? With what money? Under which conditions?
Right now, everything felt blurred.
And still—I love him. Deeply. And I want this to work.
Mo sensed it immediately. He could feel the absence of unfiltered excitement. It was just the two of us in a campervan—there was nowhere to hide. He reads me too well. But I wasn’t ready to talk. I knew he would take it personally. That he wouldn’t understand where my fears came from. I didn’t want him to feel like the proposal was wrong, or unwanted.
So I swallowed it for now.
And kissed him good morning.
My body needed movement. An outlet.
I pulled on shorts and a tank top, took the weights from the garage, placed my phone on the front window of the campervan, and started a YouTube workout. Mo followed, inspired, grabbing his elastics and easing into light exercises. He’d had surgery on his shoulder a couple of months earlier and still had to be careful. It frustrated him. Sports are as much part of his identity as they are of mine. Skipping beach volleyball and the gym wasn’t easy—but he had been disciplined with physiotherapy. Recovery was coming.
Bodies moving under open sky.
Muscles remembering themselves.
After forty-five minutes, we showered and made breakfast. With Mo, yogurt and fruit are never enough. So I stuck to what I know he loves: bread, eggs, cream cheese, a fresh salad. Simple. Grounding.
Then we decided to walk into the forest and see if we could reach Otočec Castle—the only water castle in Slovenia.
Life buzzed everywhere.
Blue dragonflies skimmed the air. Beetles crossed our path with stubborn intent. Ladybirds, bees, grasshoppers—drawn to cuckoopints, wild carrots, chicory. Nature in Slovenia is treated with respect, and it shows. Wildlife thrives here in a way that feels increasingly rare in Europe, even back home.
Halfway through the walk, the Krka River reappeared from behind the trees. A group of youths bathed along its shallow edge, their laughter soft and unforced. A grey heron flew past us and landed on a broken branch, perfectly balanced, resting in the heat.
It felt like a postcard.
Life, as it should be.
I caught myself wondering why we ever thought it needed to be more complicated than this. Why cities, industries, chaos, office jobs. And then I answered myself just as quickly: without modern life, there would be no planes, no roads, no campervans. No Dubai. No Mo. No us.
And yet—despite all the progress and comfort—we’ve overdone it. Somewhere along the way, balance slipped.
The castle appeared shortly after, standing elegantly in the middle of the river. We tried taking photos, awkwardly balancing my phone against my bag. A large family soon asked us to take a picture of them, and we asked in return. They were cheerful, loud, well-meaning—but they arrived with chaos. Once they left, silence returned immediately.
The castle remained.
Contained.
Unshakeable.
In front of it, a family of swans floated calmly. Babies included. They were used to people—no aggressive flapping, no warning hisses. Just coexistence.
Now a five-star hotel, the castle preserves its Gothic and Renaissance beauty with dignity. We wandered through its garden—weeping willows bending low, peonies and hydrangeas carefully tended, lilies and roses heavy with colour. Some of my favourite trees. Some of my favourite stillness.
We joked. Chased each other. Teased lightly. The way we always do.
There was no better place to be after a proposal. It was private, romantic, peaceful. Perfect.
And still—my joy lagged behind my love.
Walking back through the forest with Mo—watching his enthusiasm for nature, his care, his warmth, his goofy happiness—I thought I was crazy to be so worried. I had a rare man beside me. A good soul.
And yet, I couldn’t silence my fears.
I felt guilty for that. For not being able to simply surrender to happiness. But I knew I would have to talk to him. Just not yet.
He was too happy.
And that, at least, made me smile.
We reached the campervan and started getting ready to move on.
It was time to leave Slovenia.
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