Fears

I have a huge fear .

I fear I will forget what Rosie’s voice sounds like .Although I hear her in my head ,and sayings she used pop-up ( especially when we are playing Contract Whist ) all the time ,I worry one day I won’t be able to remember what her voice was like .This really scares me.

Then ,out of the blue ,something came to me .

When I was around 14 ,my classmate and friend,Jane Saward ,died very suddenly .She wasn’t one of my closest friends .Jane was in the next sort-of group ( think SOC and Bench Crew) .Thinking back ,the likelihood was she died of Septicaemia . Jane and her family went skiing one Easter and Jane didn’t come back to school after the holidays as she’d had an accident and had a nasty gash on her leg .We were told the next day Jane had died- no-one asked why , we were numb . It was terrible, we were terrible ,howling ,wailing , sent home ,we went to her Synagogue ,we didn’t know what to do . Her funeral was the following day, then a memorial ,in Beckenham,I recall. Then we settled down . But we never ever ever forgot her .

Wind on , forty-two years and I can hear her .I hear her voice .I hear her laughing as I got chucked out the dormitory on The SS Naivasha (as we sailed down the coast of Portugal ) as Sarah Kelly and I hadn’t stopped talking ,singing and laughing for 3 nights .I hear her asking about my 8th trip to see David Essex in Godspell . I hear her in Domestic Science ,swearing as she dropped her egg on the floor .I hear giggling as we hid behind the goal ,trying to skive off during our hockey lesson ( it was foggy and Miss Johnson couldn’t see us from the other side of the field ) ..and that’s all good .Because if I can hear Jane Saward’s voice ,someone I had known for 3 just years , I will always be able to hear Rosie’s.