I sometimes feel that I say the same things each year, when I write about Sarah on 9th January, but I know that there are always new people reading. She’s still making new friends. So I think it’s OK to repeat a little. I’ve always tried to have something new in what I write, and capture my feelings right now, at this time, right after I return from the ride I do every year from the Marie Curie hospice, past where Sarah used to live, and then home.
Fifteen years ago tonight, I rode my motorbike from the Marie Curie hospice, down past Cameron Toll, past where Sarah’s flat was – and on to collect someone else who wanted to be there for her last moments. I didn’t realise that she’d died probably before I even got to the motorbike – I didn’t connect that with the strong dreamy feeling that she slipped onto the seat behind me, wearing a wispy dress, and rode with me, laughing happily and singing along with me, until we passed her flat.
But it was such a magical feeling that I can remember every moment of it, and every year since, I’ve done the same ride if I could, singing the same song, until I pass her flat.
Sarah had had a rough year in 2005. She’d had severe unexplained back pain all year, and an unsympathetic GP – and it was in December that she was taken in to hospital, and diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She spent Christmas there, New Year, and her birthday before moving to the hospice.
I was priviledged that she let me visit, even when most others were turned away. If she was sleeping, I’d sit next to her and write her letters for when she woke up. The nurses would tell me what she’d said when she read them, or they read them to her. I’d often written her notes during the time I knew her, it just seemed like words on paper carried a little more of the feelings I had – so it was very natural to keep sharing thoughts that way.
In 2002, I wrote a poem for Sarah. It was terribly cryptic, full of references to songs we both listened to, or conversations we’d had, and looking back, I’m surprised it made sense to her at all. But it did. One of the last things she said to me was where she’d kept it, and that I should take it back. A few lines from that poem read:
Sometimes when in deep slumber,
You steal into my mind
You take hostage my dreams
To find and disquiet my soul.
That’s been even more true since she passed over to whatever magical world she’s in now. She haunts my thoughts, my dreams – she disquiets me, and I welcome it. She was always the friend who would tell me if she thought I was wrong – even if it was hard for me to her, it was always said with love. And she still does that – I hear her voice when I need to be told I’m wrong, or to have courage, or to believe in myself. And I often tell her I love her and remember her.
I promised her so many times in those last two months that I would never forget her.
So I do the same bike ride every year, and our Christmas tree stays up and lit, until I have done it. Then the lights go out, I share some words about her and maybe a picture with my friends, and pour a glass of excellent whisky.
There’s a glass waiting for me now.
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/