"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but ourselves".

Sometimes, someone does something for you that is so incredibly unexpected and beautifully thought out that you can’t help but get emotional at the mere thought of it. Adam did something like that for me this week and I’m still finding myself tear up a little when I describe it to people.

Before I start, you should know that I grumble at Adam a lot for not listening to me. I sort of assume he isn’t if he doesn’t answer me, or if he’s doing something else, and when he gave me this gift all of my doubts about what he notices in our relationship fell away. In fact, I’ve been feeling incredibly understood ever since.

One day last week I came home feeling physically and mentally exhausted. It had been one of those days where you find it really hard to fathom how you’ll get even half of your workload done and time is going too fast for the amount you’ve still left to do. I climbed into bed feeling quietly pleased with my efforts, but absolutely knackered after working my absolute hardest…and then Adam said those beautiful words “there’s a present over there for you”.

The long box that the gift came in gave a huge clue away but having never heard of the company that it came from, I still had absolutely no idea. When I opened the box I was still completely oblivious – inside was full of silver string and white feathers, and I could see that there were two rolled up sheets of paper.

When I finally stopped marvelling at the contents of the box and unrolled the sheets of paper, a hand flew to my mouth and I muttered “you didn’t?!” – it was most definitely the most out there, incredible gift he could’ve thought of.

That’s right, he’d named a star for me! It gets more amazing and a hell of a lot more emotional, too. He’d named the star Arthur, the name of my Grandad who passed away before Adam and I met. Not only that but my nickname in the family is ‘princess’ and Grandad’s star is in the constellation ‘Andromeda’ which is named for the mythical princess.

Honestly? I had no idea he even remembered my old man’s name, let alone enough to name a piece of the sky after him. What’s best about it is that when I assume he’s not noticing me, he is. Most evenings I dawdle between the car and the door because I’m so busy craning my neck to look up at the sky, murmuring “it’s so beautiful”.

As ridiculous as it sounds I’ve found myself comforted over the last few days. My certificate tells me the exact co-ordinates of my star - simply downloading an iPhone app would show me the basic area that it’s in. Grandad doesn’t have a gravestone or anything like that and so there’s nowhere that I can really go to ‘talk’ to him. Now, not only can I gaze up at the sky, but I can be content with knowing that a piece of him is up there looking down at me.