Remembering my friend Karen.
My friend Karen passed away. We hadn’t been in touch for a few years actually, but at one point we were very close. Karen and I met at work. I was in my early 20s, and she was around my mother’s age - which may seem weird to some people, but I’ve always been surrounded by people older than me and so, our becoming friends was completely normal to me.
It’s kind of difficult to bottle up a person’s existence into only a few words - even when you only knew them for a fraction of their life. Karen was full of it - life, that is. She was a small, light on her feet, incredibly positive human being. At work, she used to carry a small set of keys attached to her uniform, and it would make a delightful jingly sound as she wandered about the place. That “jingle, jingle, jingle” will remain in my memory for as long as I stay in control of it.
Karen had already lived a few lives by the time I met her. Some joyful, others more difficult. I was drawn to her seemingly knowing exactly who she was and where she was in the grand picture of her existence at that moment. I too wanted to get to that place, and was incredibly impatient about it. I guess I still am now, even though I’ve gotten closer to the answer over the years. I firmly believe that being in her presence helped me find pieces of myself quicker than I would have if she hadn’t been there.
Karen cared deeply for the people she loved and I was incredibly fortunate to be one of those people. I used to think that I was getting way more out of our friendship than she was. But at some point, through conversation, I realised that wasn’t exactly true. She too, was getting something she held dear out of our being in each other’s lives. There are so many memories I will cherish of our time together, and I am so, so grateful for every single one of them. The frivolous ones, like her lending me £10 the day before I was going on a date because she wanted to make sure I had a nice time. And the life-changing ones, like the time she invited me to spend Christmas with her and her husband because I didn’t have enough money to fly home to be with my family, and I ended up catching swine flu and spending over a week in their home, in their spare room, convinced I was dying.
The news of her passing hit me pretty hard. Part of me is also devastated that we drifted out of each other’s lives so much. Life is like that sometimes, I guess. We never fell out. Life just happened. Instead of dwelling on that, I’m just glad I get to live with the knowledge that we both were meaningful encounters to each other and that we had communicated that to each other in time. The comfort I take from that right now is immeasurable. Tell the people you love that you love them whilst you can.
PS: Karen also lived in one of my favourite houses - an old lock keeper’s house, the only building on a tiny island in the middle of the river, where she made friends with the canal boat owners who would come by in the spring and summer. As unique, charming and inviting as she was.
