Box of Memories

Losing you was one of the worst things to ever happen to me. And in my lifetime I have experienced many ghastly things. I have lost family and friends, and then I lost you as well, the closest thing I had left to a family. I began to wonder if I was destined to lose everyone I hold dear. Who would be next? Trixie? Barbara?

While I know the world did not lose you completely, I lost you in so many ways. As I sat by your bed in hospital, I looked into eyes that used to hold so much love and happiness, and now were void of anything except for confusion and pain. Your cheerful optimism and cheeky sense of humour were scrubbed away, leaving a completely blank slate. If watching it in your eyes was painful for me, I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like for you. Maybe you are still feeling it. Existing as a stranger in your own body.

One of the things I have always loved about you (of which there are many), is how full of personality you were. When I first met you, you were a welcome change amidst the dozens of rather dull patients on male surgical, and some equally tedious nurses. You never seemed to care what people think of you, and I admire you greatly for that. You were incredibly caring, and you always had a kind word for anyone in need. You lit up any room you walk into and it was marvelous to watch people relax while talking to you.

Perhaps you have returned to being all of these things and more, but I'm afraid I would not know. After I saw you just the once in hospital, your mother took you home to Wales as soon as the doctor allowed. And I have seen nothing of you since. I did write to you in the first few months after the accident, but none of my letters ever received a reply, from either you or your mother. It is absolutely beastly of me to think so selfishly because for all I know you are still in no fit state to write to me, and your mother must be really rather busy already, without having to reply to an 'acquaintance' of her daughter.

So while I may not write to you now as I used to, (how does one go about writing to somebody when they know nothing about you but you know everything about them), I still continue to think about you every day. I wonder how far along the road to recovery you are. I wonder how much you remember, if anything. I wonder what your life is like in your small Welsh village with your family. I wonder if you remember me.

Perhaps that is what your life will be now. Perhaps you will never return to London, never return to nursing, never return to me. Maybe you will build a new life, with new people. And while it pains me to say it, I am glad you can at least have that. While I would be overjoyed if you returned to me, I love you so much I am simply glad that you have any future at all. It is more than my family got.

But now all I have left of you are two photographs. Just two photographs to represent everything you mean to me. And they reside in my box of precious things. My box that contains the very few things that I have to remember the people I have loved, and lost.