Trigger warning – This blog post contains sensitive topics and emotions. Please take care when reading and stop if you become upset or distressed.
Ten years today my best friend Lucy passed away. She fought hard throughout her short life with Cystic Fibrosis, especially during the last few years when her need of a double lung transplant became desperate. She was hooked up to her oxygen machine consistently, couldn’t walk long distances so was in a wheelchair and eventually had to have a bipap when her breathing became harder and she needed more oxygen. Sadly she never got her lung transplant and eventually her illness took her life. She was 15. It was the hardest year of mine, my friends and her family and friends lives. Lucy was an angel on earth, truly.
The year she passed away was the start of year 11 at school. We were all deep within GCSE’s and it was ‘The most important year’ as everyone around kept saying. When she passed September 22nd 2012, I went downhill. I couldn’t eat properly, I couldn’t sleep or think and learning became impossible. I didn’t want to go on without her, but we all had to try and pull ourselves together. Our teachers told us to ‘get over it’ and ‘focus on work’ and not one ounce of sympathy was given to us as we mourned the loss of such an important person in our lives. I eventually succumbed to my depression and had to leave mainstream education to be homeschooled. Even though I’d left the school, I was invited by the headmistress to our school prom; This was because Lucy never made it to that day, but she really wanted to go, so we went for her and ticked it off our bucket list!
Every single year since 2012, my friends and I have got together or celebrated through zoom Lucy’s anniversary. The first year, we sat outside the Birmingham Children’s Hospital, had a picnic and could see the unit where she spent her final days. We then went to Ward 7, where she had most of her care for her life and thanked them for all they did for Lucy.
We celebrated her birthdays each year with meals out, girly nights, nights dancing and raising glasses and even zoom celebrations during COVID times.
This year will be the last year we make memories in my home as next week we move house. My home was the main base for friends gatherings and such, so a lot of memories are within the walls. It’s hard to know that memories with Lucy won’t be made in the new home but it’s part of the grieving process and although it never gets any less devastating, we learn to cope with those emotions. Together we hold one another up. We have a cry, we laugh at memories and we tell people about her so that her memory and legacy lives on. 10 years seems like 5 minutes, although it is such a long amount of time. We will continue to celebrate every year that we can, whether that’s lighting a candle of an evening and wearing her favourite colours, or going out for meals or a cheeky tipple and a boogie. We even go to the New Look we used to all go to and remember the times we spent shopping and all giggling in the big changing room!
I’m not sure what else to say, but if you have experienced similar or even just the struggle of losing someone you love, please take care. Do not mourn at someone else’s pace or to anyone else expectations. You work uniquely and your mindset and wellbeing and the way you work is all on your clock. No one can tell you to get over it, so please go at your own pace. Time makes us cope a little better but the pain does not go away. Just keep doing your best and things will fall into place.
You got this! Stay wonderful!
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