My friend, Charlotte

Dear Molly,

Autumn is once again upon us. The garden smelt of damp earth and the scent of  bonfires hung lightly in the air this morning. It always makes me want to write to you. It is my restorative and protective season, when we wrap ourselves up for winter. This post is part something I needed to do this year, to wrap myself up for winter. This autumn, you are almost 9 and I am 42, and you are my constant joy. 

2019 has, so far, been packed with both happiness and sorrow. I am writing to you about the sorrow, but to show you that the sorrow can also bring happiness. 

I lost my oldest friend, Charlotte, this year. You knew I was sad and your little hand on my arm was as much comfort as I could ever have wished for. You let me be sad and told me that it was "ok Mummy".

Me and Charlotte on a school trip c1987

When Charlotte was ill the first time around, I was terrified and angry. She didn’t cry. I couldn’t stop. She handled her treatment as best she could and I was so flipping proud of her. She overcame the worst of ordeals and came out the other side, the very same girl who had embarked on that journey. We celebrated and I took her for the spa day that I had promised her all those months before, at the start of her treatment. We had a perfect day and Charlotte made me laugh constantly. She never believed that she belonged in 'fancy' places but she appreciated it so much which filled me with joy.  

Me and Charlotte on our fancy spa day in August 2018

It would only be a handful of months before Charlotte would tell me, on my birthday this year, that the illness was back, and that it was incurable. Maintaining consistency, she was amazing, and I couldn’t stop the tears. I asked a million questions. I said I was sorry and I looked for some hope. I travelled back and forth to Norwich and I spent time at her bedside. It was during that time that she asked me to never forget her. It was the hardest exchange I have ever had. I cried all the way home. This post is to help me to fulfill my promise to Charlotte, to never forget her, and for you, my daughter, to never forget with me. I watched Charlotte go to sleep for the final time. She passed away a few days after I had seen her and only 6 weeks after telling me the news. It was March 2019. 

I can still feel the physical gap that Charlotte has left inside me. I would never wish the grief that I felt, on you, but, as sure as the sun will rise and fall, you will experience loss in your lifetime. I want you to know that it is ok and not to be scared. That is why I am telling you about Charlotte, my friend, who I lost.

You, me, Hannah & Charlotte in March 2017 in Cambridge

Charlotte was one of those friends that you could go to with anything. She was my rock. She was so very grateful for her friendship with me and I will never stop being grateful for mine with her. I could tell her that my tummy ached and she’d take time out from her day to find a way to cheer me up. Or I could tell her that my whole life was collapsing and she’d pack some cake, get in the car and drive over. She saw me through the toughest time in my life with brutally honest compassion and humour. She was just so blooming real, like the Velveteen Rabbit:

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.” - Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

Charlotte was everything a friend should be and I loved her for it. 

Some things just strip you to your very core, and this was one of those things. It was the rawest emotion I have ever felt. Whilst it physically hurt, I was, I am, still amazed by it too. There is no shame in allowing your heart to break. Your body will heal and where the breaks were, you will grow more resilience. That’s how I feel anyway. You are put back together a little bit stronger. The grief of losing Charlotte knocked me sideways and I was completely unprepared. And now, 6 months on, I can still lift the lid on that grief so easily and the tears will flow in an instant. But I can put the lid back on too. I have learnt to sit with my feelings. Let them come and go, like waves on the shoreline, and seek joy in the memories. Charlotte was so very special and I would choose to have her friendship and lose her, than never to have had it at all, every day of the week. 

So my darling Molly, always remember that to be vulnerable is not a weakness and to feel pain is part of life. Never hold it in or feel ashamed. Sadness makes us real, just like the Velveteen Rabbit, and you should embrace that.

Charlotte thought the absolute world of you. In one of her last messages to me we were talking about you and she wrote:

"She's a kind girl. We bloody lucked out didn't we"

She was right, as always. I did luck out with you and I hope that you always remember Charlotte through these pictures and my stories. I love you, and her, eternally.

We wrote 'Charlotte' in the sand at Covehithe in February and threw the stone into the sea. Charlotte loved the sea xx

“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.” - Richard Adams, Watership Down 

Mayday - 2019

I haven’t written to you for a while. I do it when I feel it. Sometimes it’s not there, and then it returns, on a breeze, willing me to put down our memories for the future. To write is to fulfil the requirement, and then I blow it away again, like a dandelion seed head.

So, you’re 8 years old. I’ve just been to watch you dance around the Maypole for the Mayday celebrations at your school. I will treasure these memories. You’ll be grown up before I know it and I can feel it coming. I don’t fear it, as such. I just feel it. The passing of time once happened way up in the stratosphere. It happened without me noticing. Like wispy white clouds blowing away in a blue sky. Now I feel it all around me like a paper thin silk veil blowing and draping over my body as I walk. It touches my face, my arms, my body and my legs. It’s soft and gentle, not heavy, just there to lightly remind me.

You have seemed older recently. You are moving from young child to older girl so seamlessly and effortlessly that I barely notice. But if I stop for a moment, and pay attention to your chatter, I notice that it has changed. You ask if I am ok a lot. You tell me about your learning at school. You tell me what’s happened that day on the playground and who has been kind and who hasn’t. You still want to write, to paint and to draw. You talk about creation. You ponder on the big questions. You talk kindly about everyone and you care so much. You put other people’s needs before yours and you care about those with less than you. You adore your cat, Penny, with everything you have and I will be forever grateful for that funny and impulsive day when we looked at each other and said “shall we get a cat?”

You playing 'rock paper scissors' with Penny

You read everything and you devour books with such joy, especially Tom Gates books. You also love Lord of the Rings and Minecraft. I never tried to steer you, and never will, but, somehow, I knew that you wouldn’t be a princess and unicorn kind of girl.

Tonight you asked if you and Annie could be sisters. I said it wouldnt be possible because a Mummy needs 9 months to grow a baby and you and Annie only have a month between you. You thought for a moment and responded with, “Mummy, tapir babies take 13 months to grow in their Mummies’ tummies!”

You still love babies and you talk incessantly about having your own one day. It was Easter a couple of weeks ago. We discussed that the Easter bunny is actually Mummy. You were grateful that you knew the truth because, apparently, if I’d never told you, you would have waitied for him when you had your own children and they wouldn’t have got any eggs! Oliver did your Easter egg hunt this year and he was much better than any rabbit anyway.

I’ve just tucked you into bed. I read The Royal Rabbits of London for your bedtime story. I’ve read to you every night that I could, since you were born and we still do our “moon and back million times” routine and sing “You are my sunshine.” You are changing every day before my very eyes, but you hold tightly to our funny little ways and traditions and that is one of the many reasons that I love you with every fibre of my being. See you in the morning sweetie x

“And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge.” 
- Galadriel: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings