During the last three years I’ve said too many tearful goodbyes to people who I have loved and who have stamped their special characters into my soul.
This week I will be saying a final farewell to John, a friend for forty years.
We spent ten years of our lives together and since then our strong friendship has moulded into an exchange of support and sharing a love of music, film and books.
In the 1980s we traveled around his much loved Spain, proudly thinking we had learned to speak Spanish at night school until challenged with trying to understand Spanish people talking!
I have stood ‘patiently’ tapping my feet while John lay on the pavement in the middle of Madrid trying to get THE photograph, and again in the Alhambra Palace in Granada and again in Andalusia and the mountains of Austria…
I sat through a horrific bull fight in Rhonda because John wanted the experience, oh yes, and the photos…
Those who knew John will know that getting up and down from the floor was no mean feat with his disabilities caused by polio when he was 4 years old.
He taught me so much about dealing with disability. As ironically I followed in his footsteps - or not so many steps as it turned out…
He showed me that grit determination mixed in with a bit of a temper, helps in rising above health challenge after health challenge which were thrown at him and subsequently me…
He rarely complained about his fate but when he did it was usually to my ears as a nurse. I understood his pain and frustration and even more so as my own health declined.
Despite his own problems he was ready with advice, compiling a cd on music we had spoken about or researching whichever electronic device I was thinking about buying…
When I decided to learn to play the ukulele during lockdown it was John I turned to for guidance... We had always been happy to entertain as a guitar playing duet - John a skilful master of the guitar, while I strummed along or sung out of tune!
John had a strong family of friends but it is only now as we plan his funeral that I begin to understand how, like a bird collecting grass and straw, it was John who gathered people into his nest of friendship.
It is only through loss that I begin to realise how much of my friends' soul has seeped into mine…
So once again, as I sit in the garden listening to the breeze rustling through the trees and to the joyful bird song as they settle on branches, I am reminded that precious moments like this can so easily end…
Rest in Peace John xxx
