I'm struggling somewhat at the moment. I've barely slept over the last few days because my brain is buzzing, and not in a good way. If you'll indulge my self involvement for a moment I'll tell you why.
I found out late last week that one of my friends from my time at school, Alice Anne, had died. In fact she had taken her own life, I'm sad to say. Now this has totally and utterly pulled the rug out from under my feet. You see I've spent the last twelve years or so of my life living with the notion that, due to my incredibly complicated medical history, that my luck wouldn't hold out forever and one of the infections that I get would eventually kill me. I've come to terms with that, I had to when I was lying in a hospital bed in isolation and weighing 41kg and barely hanging on as my body of doctors fought to repair my bedraggled body. Now, aside from the permanent issue with the lungs, I'm the most stable I've been for years but still all it would take is one infection to beat all my defences. Now I've got rather good at self diagnosis and can spot something brewing and act accordingly but like I said I've always laboured under what now appears to be the misapprehension that I would be the first of what my best friend Dave today rather eloquently called 'The Old Team' to go. I was prepared for that; what I wasn't prepared for was this.
Just over a year ago I spoke of my friend Gavin taking his own life and how it affected me but this is just another level entirely. Gav was someone I knew as a fully fledged adult and you can only really know so much about your adult friends but Alice Anne was someone I went through secondary school with. Like Dave said, The Old Team, and they REALLY know your whole story, so you can't kid them on. Her parents were friends of my mum and dads so she was one of the first people from a different primary school that I sought out when I started there back in 1989. Hers was a family of seven kids and mine has five and there was a fair bit of overlap between our families. It seemed like every other year had a Devlin kid or a Kilday one. It's incredibly facile to eulogise about someone when they've died and ignore their flaws but from my perspective she was always one of the good ones. I think I liked her so because she was not only gregarious but there was a mischief with her that highlighted a very keen intellect. We sat together in our Standard Grade English class for only a short while as we were always getting the other one in trouble for talking, mostly in rather cruel terms about whatever literary 'masterpiece' we were being peddled at the time. She really did get me into trouble as often as I did her which I found to be a rare talent for a girl. As was the practice of the time (and probably still is now actually) in matters of the heart it is the best friend who tells a second year boy that he is no longer going out with her best friend and indeed it did fall to Alice Anne to deliver that news to me that I was indeed no longer her best friend Maureen's boyfriend. She took me aside and told me in the most caring and compassionate way that such a devastating blow to the fragile ego of a 13 year old can be delivered, giving me a big hug afterwards.
She was a talented musician and artist, whereas I was far more maths and science so later years in school we were in fewer and fewer of each others classes but remained good, solid friends.
After we left school we met occasionally in the west end of Glasgow round about the Glasgow Uni campus and no matter how long it had been between these sporadic meetings we just lapsed back into the old routine and talked as if no time at all had passed between.
After Uni I moved away so even these chance encounters were to be no more but on very rare occasions she bumped into my parents at Celtic games and I would get an update on how she was getting on. On one of her meetings with my parenting team both they, my sister Janine and cousin Andrew as well as Alice Anne and her husband managed to get into a press picture of the crowd at the game up at Aberdeen so when she found out of my dad passing away she hunted it down and it still takes pride of place as the background on my mum's laptop. Later on the advent of Facebook allowed us to get back in touch and again we spoke like we had never been out of contact. I find that to be true of all the best relationships I have in my life. I can go months and even years without speaking to some of my friends and yet lapse into conversation like there's been no gap at all.
I think that's what I'm struggling to come to terms with. Intermittent as they were, I always loved having a chat with Alice Anne and knowing that I'll never have the pleasure again is cutting me deeply. Of the stages of grief I'm still firmly in the denial stage thinking that it just can't be true. I've had a bit of a chat with the aforementioned Maureen about it all (she too is one of those friends I can go months without speaking to but don't miss a heartbeat when we start up again) and I can only imagine she's feeling it a lot harder than I am especially as she's had to break the news to a lot of people. I've done the same and literally talked myself hoarse going through the tragic story to the other members of The Old Team.
There is a service on Thursday at Perth Crematorium which is well within my range for my portable oxygen cylinder so I'm going up for it. Most of the people that I'll see there know that my health hasn't been the best but I hope they're not too upset by the sight of me being pushed in my wheelchair by either my sister Clare or my niece Maria (I've yet to decide which of them I trust more with steering) and with the tubes pumping the oxygen into my battered lungs.
As I learned through a similar thing happening with Gav, the only way I could find consolation is that whatever was going on in their lives and whatever demons they were facing, knowing that they are at peace now brings some comfort. It's not much comfort. In fact it's nowhere near enough but it's all I've got so I've got to cling to it.
Rest in Peace my friend - I hope you knew how much you were loved
Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment