Friendship
What are you supposed to do when you lose our best friend; how do you even prepare for it?
Not sure who took this photo, but we are at Ambleside. It’s not there anymore.
While Ambleside is long gone now, it used to be one of our favourite haunts, back in the day. This is a picture of my Mum (the Brian May lookalike). Her mate Hilary, my brother Luke, Hilary’s son Mathew and me. We were trying to work out when it was taken, and our best guess is about 1987.
My Mum met Hilary when they lived in the same street, over 44 years ago. They were both pregnant at the time. My Mum with me, and Hilary with Mathew (that isn’t a typo, it’s spelt with one T, because…Hilary!)
We left the street in the early eighties when we moved to a bigger house. But Mum and Hilary were solid. They have just always been a thing.
Mum has always said she is glad social media wasn’t about when they were out at Chasers, our dodgy local nightclub. I imagine they would have had the most interesting Snapchat stories. And would have been very grateful that they disappeared after 24 hours!
Best Friends
Your mum’s best friend is often just like a sister to her . Especially when your mum is an only child as mine is. This means that for all intents and purposes, your mums best friend is your aunt. This is doubly true if they have been friends since before you were born. It is quadruply true if you spent more time on sleepovers at their house with their kids than you did with your real cousins.
This sisterhood goes beyond family. There is a bond with your best friend that goes beyond other relationships. While it is one thing to ‘fall out’ and drift apart from a friend, when they die, and you lose them, you lose a part of yourself.
They seem to have always been there, and now they just aren’t. The one who kept your secrets, the one who you created some of your funniest memories with, the one who would happily give you an alibi – no questions asked.
And now, when you reach for the phone to give her the latest gossip, you remember that she is not there to take that call.
Society and friendship
Today we will be going to Westerleigh Crematorium for our last outing with Hilary. While your workplace will give you days off when you bury grandparents and family members there seems to be a social blindness when it comes to appreciating how devastating losing a best friend can be.
While people will console family members, as is right, often little thought is given to the feelings of the deceased best friend. It could be argued that Pat and Hilary were closer than sisters, but society doesn’t recognise these bonds. If Mum had lost an actual sister or family member the sympathy offered would be different.
Pat does have the benefit of knowing that Mathew is fully aware of how close they were. He has been round to visit Mum with pictures and shared stories. He is and will remain, our honourary brother.
Disenfranchisement
But what if you were never particularly close to your friends family? Perhaps you never even met them? If they are the ones organising the funeral it can be hard to be forced to take a backseat in something so important; to feel so disenfranchised from something that should be commemorating someone who was an integral part of your life.
‘For whom the bell tolls’
I think two things have hit me most by Hilary’s death. It was very quick, literally a case of a bad back, to hospitalisation to discovering her cancer, and then she was gone in a matter of weeks. The unexpectedness of it all was breathtakingly fast.
The other is that Hilary was younger than my Mum. She was also considered the fittest of the ‘squad’. When we had gone on previous Butlins jaunts it was always Hilary speed walking along the beach, with my Mum and me trying to keep up.
Mum had planned their retirement. When Hilary got her bus pass in August they were going to go on wild adventures. They were going to have cool days out and take trips wherever they wanted. They were going to wander around the garden centres, and have chips on the pier at Weston.
“She was supposed to bury me”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” my Mum said to me when we saw Hils at the funeral home on Saturday. She wanted to check the pyjamas she bought her looked right and weren’t too tight around her neck. Hils hated stuff around her neck. “She was supposed to bury me”.
I pointed out that if it was me and Hils doing her funeral she wouldn’t have been getting cute pink heart covered PJ’s. And she wouldn’t have looked as colour co-ordinated either.
Let’s just say that Hils totally lived the #IWearWhatILike Vibe! We would have stuck mum in that denim jacket in the photo above – she’s still got it. The Eighties are over Pat!
It is one thing to bury ageing parents, and grandparents, but when they are friends who are the same age as you, or younger it makes you question your own mortality. We are all only given so long. At times like this, I really fall back on my plan. I need to get my life sorted.
What happens now
When Pat and I were out shopping the other week, we bumped into one of her friends from school. As they got chatting she mentioned that her best friend had recently died, and was at a total loss.
She had joined clubs and was trying to get out and about, but it made her appreciate that she had been so invested in her friendship, that she had neglected to develop other outlets.
It had made her realise how few friends she had. I have previously written a piece on friendship, and in it, I mention that the reason my Mum has so many friends is that she makes an effort; she calls often, remembers birthdays and special events; she makes an effort.
In the case of my Mum’s school friend, her loss made her realise how few friends she had. She had over-invested in one friendship, and when we over-rely on one person for all our needs it makes it harder when they are not there anymore.
Moving on
Losing one of the squad has an impact on the whole dynamic of your friendship group. We had been planning on going on a ‘final fling’ weekend away to Butlins. That’s where that video of Pat attempting to climb into that deck chair is from. Initially, she did not want to go without Hil, but we have now booked up and it will be a commemorative weekend where we will pour one out.
Although Hil would not approve of wasting good wine, so we will ‘pour one out’ into a glass…and then drink it.
Today is the funeral – I am useless at funerals; I generally become a blubbering mess. It’s part of my ongoing existential crisis. The mere concept of death, that it will one day be my mum, and then me, and I have so much I want to do and feel I am not achieving. It just reminds us that death is the only guarantee in life.
Death is the great equaliser; no matter what parts of my list I tick off, whether I get to live out my dream life in Japan or not, one day, it will be me in that box, and people will be upset for a bit, but in a generation or two, I will be forgotten as if I never existed. Which is a pretty depressing thought.
The sad reality is that we now live in a world that doesn’t have Hilary in it. Things will never be the same, and I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it.
If you need help with loss and grief the Help Guide website offers suggestions and help in a number of articles.