Time blurs the edges a bit and the important stuff stays, but I find it hard now to recall your laugh and doubt whether my memory of your voice is quite right. Your smile though that will always stick.
22 years is a long time to miss someone. The older I get and the more I see and do, like experiencing the love of your own family, the chance to get married, the buzz of holding your first house keys the more I wish you got a chance to feel it too.
I still have not completed Sneaky Snakes by the way, your old Gameboy is safe but you would love how computer games have changed, 3D, colour so many interactive games, but Tetris is always being reborn and is much a favourite now as back then.
We are taking our son to Disney this year, I know it will remind me of you. I still have your glass proudly sitting in my cabinet, one of the gifts you bought yourself when you visited just as it opened. I have never forgiven myself for loosing the Minnie Mouse pin badge you bought back for me, I had worn it to France as a lucky mascot on my first trip abroad and lost it near the Eiffle Tower. I always imagine a child picked it up and your kindness has been shared once more, now we call it 'paying it forward' - you would have liked to have been involved in that.
I remember your Grandad turning up at my door with this box of your things - a koala, your Euro Disney medal for being one of the first to visit and the glass, your beloved Gameboy and your last school photo. He told me that in your notebook at the top of the page it said "Invite Kate to tea" - that would have been lovely.
We were the young ones in our year and I dealt with your loss poorly. I did not know what I should feel or do, I told Mum and Dad in such a rush it was almost like I had read a newspaper article, or seen it on the news. No tears. They took a long time to fall. 11... we were just 11.
I hope you never minded I did not say goodbye with everyone else, it felt wrong and odd and overwhelming. I took a long time writing my message to you though, I wanted it just right and I stood and remembered as I left your flowers after everyone else had gone. Little girl lost.
Mischevious
And
Really
Kind
You in a nutshell. Though it could have easily been Marbles, Adventures, Real Kindness...
Oh marbles, hours and hours on dirty drain covers, talking about aliens and dreams of waking up and exploring the fields whilst families slept. Childhood memories which I hold dear even if they now appear more like a water colour than in full HD.
Forever young... your dreams of archeology remain untarnished by the possible struggle to get grades or having to find the funding for Uni. You have not made teenage mistakes or had the kind of arguments that cannot be truly undone. You are in a time freeze, a snap shot of childhood.
I talk about you to my son... he has a very special friend too, they have been together since the first day of Primary school - best friends who fall out, make up, find new friendships but are always drawn back together. I tell him how brilliant it is to have a friend like that, that being friends with a girl is magical and marvellous and I had a special friend like that too. I show him the special marbles I still have, and talk of seeing you walking your dog in the field and that 2p you found and gave me so I could go and buy sweets.
Thank you for such a wonderful friendship - thank you for giving me stories to tell with a smile as I see my sons eyes light up with the same mischief you held. Thank you for sending another friend my way after you left... your loss drew me to him, one of ones you made in those first bumbling months of secondary school, thanks to him my teenage years were filled to the brim with silliness and fun just as you would have wished.
See you some day buddy... hope I am doing you proud,
Me x
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