Remembering – 2022

Every year I doubt my ability to write anything new about Sarah. Then I get on my motorbike, and ride up to the hospice, and from there repeat the ride I did the night she died, imagining her riding with me… and memories always surface.

Many of the things I remember are the same each year, of course. Always happy things, always memories of how magical, special and loved she was. But then there’s always something new, as if she whispers to me “do you remember the time when we… “. This year, she wanted me to remember the snowboarding trip she, Sydny and I did to Glenshee, and conversations sitting on a snowy hillside, looking down at the run we were about to attempt. And a conversation about music and friendship over coffee before going to see a movie together. Those memories wouldn’t mean much to anyone who wasn’t there, I suspect. But just having, and holding those memories is special.

We used to introduce each other to music all the time – she’d lend me new CD’s I hadn’t heard, and I’d make her mix CD’s for various moods. I found the cover and track list for one I made her earlier this week.

I remember making this CD. She was having quite a few “rainy days” that month, so I made a CD to cheer her up. Whenever I made her CDs, the first track would always be the theme song from a cartoon, and it would end with something silly. Sometimes it annoyed her, sometimes it made her laugh – but she didn’t skip the tracks when she played the CDs, she told me later.

I recreated the CD on Spotify – or most of it, they don’t have a couple of the tracks.

Maybe it can still chase away rainy days.

Other memories of Sarah surfaced this week after I posted a picture of a LARP she was at on Facebook. Her sister, Vicki, wanted to explain LARP and Sarah’s love of it, to her teenagers, so I said I’d collect together some photos of Sarah playing LARPs. Looking through photos reminded me that she played every LARP I ran from 1995 to 2000. I’ve put these photos in a gallery below, and will add them to Facebook too. Many of these pictures were taken by David Spracklen,  most of the games were written by me, with a couple of exceptions.

We ran those LARP holidays from 1995 till the millenium New Year – I think for all of us, it was a chance to tell stories, have fun, be someone else for a while. Someone magical. And mischief, of course, lots of mischief.

I didn’t do much LARP from 2001 to 2007, but I’m doing a lot now, and I often think how much Sarah would love the games we’re playing today.

I made the same promise to Sarah several times in her last two months. That I would never forget her. That many people would remember her, and keep remembering her, and I’d make sure we all did. So I do the same bike ride every year, and our Christmas tree stays up and lit as it did that year, until I have done it. Then the lights go out, I share some words about her and maybe some pictures with my friends, and pour a glass of excellent whisky.

I’m off to get a glass now, and dream some more memories of Sarah.

Other posts about Sarah:   

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/