| I recently lost a very dear friend - she was the first | | | | service, I found myself questioning the quality of the |
| person I really connected with when I moved to this | | | | support I had offered to Sally during the last weeks of |
| area and she was a big part of the reason why I felt | | | | her illness. Had I gone to see her enough? Contacted |
| so welcome and at home here. Apart from my Nan, a | | | | her enough? Helped her enough? How like my friend |
| good many years ago now, this was the first time I'd | | | | to give me an immediate answer, for on arriving home |
| had to come to terms with the death of someone | | | | a small voice in my head asked me to go and look in |
| important in my life and it has been an illuminating | | | | the journal I kept by my bed to record my dreams. In |
| experience. | | | | the back of that journal I found a card that Sally had |
| Although I knew I believed in the immortality of the soul | | | | given me after she had recovered from the major |
| and the everlasting bond of love, I have realised just | | | | operation resulting from her first diagnosis. In it she said: |
| how deep and true that belief is. My friend Sally spent | | | | "I do not think we need to be in constant physical |
| her last weeks in a hospice and although I could not | | | | contact as I feel a bond that sits out there somewhere |
| physically go to her, I visited her in spirit and knew with | | | | - in time and space." |
| certainty she could feel my presence. In the days | | | | She was and is so right. I have cried and still do for the |
| following her death, I chatted non-stop to her in my | | | | physical "loss" of this lovely lady, and I will miss the |
| mind and knew without doubt she was listening - it | | | | coffee mornings, the afternoon teas, the laughter, the |
| never occurred to me that I couldn't speak to her or | | | | dancing and the performances we shared. But I know |
| she couldn't hear me any more. So vivid was this | | | | she has not really gone, her spirit lives on and is still a |
| experience that on the morning of her funeral I | | | | very real part of my life. For the early Christians the |
| remember saying to my partner that I had the | | | | butterfly was a symbol of the soul, and to watch its |
| weirdest feeling I was going to actually see Sally there, | | | | movements reminds us that life is a joyful dance. The |
| enjoying the celebration of her beautiful life, and we | | | | other evening, although no doors or windows were |
| would discuss it all together. | | | | open, we were graced by a butterfly flitting playfully |
| As we drove back from the wonderful and moving | | | | around our lounge. "Hello, Sally," I said. |