In the early hours of the morning, my beautiful friend Kim left for spirit. She has left behind, not only her amazing little family, but also her legacy of kindness and wisdom.
Kim and I met in our early 20’s, both hostesses in a restaurant on the eternally cool Kings Road, Chelsea. She was just a couple of years older than me but had already travelled and explored so much that she carried this worldly aura. I was frippish and naive to her calm and sense. It would have been easy for her to be disdainful of me but instead she embraced the best of me, she’s always done that.
We whiled away the hours with humour and candour; our friendship honest and simple. And then she left to travel some more and our paths diverged.
Some 10 years ago, through the gifts of social media, we reconnected across the world; Melbourne to London. We watched each other’s lives as we dived into love & parenthood and the crazy all consuming discoveries that flow with that; we engaged in light comments and philosophical discussions here and there.
And then she got sick, she was told she had very little time, and we plunged right back into that friendship we had left behind at our hostess stand 20 years ago.
She has given every ounce of herself to be around for her family for as long as possible, she has walked this illness through three and half years and I have walked alongside behind the written word of our messages as we have shared our loves, our fears, our histories and our hopes. There is nothing like the shadow of death to focus our hearts to truth.
As she did so many moons ago, she saw the best in me through every conversation, she offered wisdom won through pain and joy and I know she offered that to everyone. One of her fears as she neared the end was that her children might think she had not ‘fought’ hard enough to stay alive and it breaks my heart that she could even consider that of herself when she loved them so passionately and absolutely. She raised herself up and away from her own childhood of pain to offer them the very best of herself because that is the strength of woman she was.
And now I have had to say goodbye to one of my closest and dearest friends despite not having as much as hugged her for two decades. That is love, that is friendship and that is heartache.