(Originally posted at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/malcolm-campbell/remembering-2015/10150469383614995)
Every year, on this date, I do the same motorbike ride. A roundabout route up to the Marie Curie hospice, then I take the same route I did nine years ago, on the night Sarah died. It’s my way of remembering her, keeping my promise that I’d never forget her. It’s different every year – sometimes I feel that same echo of her presence that I did the night she died, other times it’s just some time to focus, remember.
Tonight I’m still fighting off a cold, it’s wild and windy out, the roads are wet, not the best night for a ride. Its important though.
There was a car right on my tail when I was about to pull up outside the Hospice this year, so I pulled into the drive to stop safely – and it followed me in, so I had to ride up to the top of the car park and turn around to let the car past safely – in the same space I was parked in that night. When I looked up, there was a light on in the same room Sarah was in. The wind was howling in the trees as I headed back out onto the road, and it got me thinking about one particular part of my relationship with Sarah.
Of all my friends, Sarah was the one who would poke me if I was being stupid, tell me when she thought I was wrong, be blunt with me when I needed that – and do it all without me ever feeling she was acting from self-interest. She wasn’t always right, but she never held back from telling me when she thought I was wrong.
Tonight, I had a conversation with her as I rode along from the hospice to where she used to live – and she bent my ear about a few things. And laughed at me a bit when I told her I’d realised some things about myself this year, as if she’d always known. She used to do that too, in a way I could never be annoyed with.
I used to say there was a Sarah-shaped hole in my life. But that space is full of memories, so it’s not empty. More of a Sarah-shaped corner full of books, music, movies, memories and foods.
About to pour a whisky to toast her memory. Thinking of her, and everyone else who misses her.
For those that didn’t know her, this is what I wrote after she died: https://www.skirnir.com/seolta/sarah/
All my posts about Sarah are saved here now: https://www.skirnir.com/seolta/