Kay

Today was my best friend's 10 year anniversary. She and I had many nicknames for each other growing up, I'm going to use "Kay" to write about her.

We met on the first day of secondary school. Her deskmate had made an unkind comment about her, not realising Kay was standing right behind. As soon as she noticed, she and her coterie beat a hasty retreat and I, hapless 11-year-old that I was, said "she didn't mean it, I think she was talking about someone else".

Kay, with the grace that I soon came to realise was characteristic, let my inept lie pass unremarked and smiled. We were best friends from that moment until she died, far too early at the age of 31.

She was amazing, was Kay. She had a congenital disease with which she battled every day of her life, but you would never have known unless she told you. She had to take medication with every meal and very early on we developed a system to hide this from others. It was simple, but hey - we were 11 years old. At the appropriate time in the meal, Kay would glance at me and I would drop something, kicking it discretely so that it landed near to her. Kay would dive under the table, retrieve the fork / spoon / salt cellar and slip a tablet into her mouth. All through school people must have thought that I was both incredibly clumsy and incredibly rude to make someone else retrieve what I had dropped.

Because Kay refused to be defined by her disease or treated any differently, she hardly told a soul about it. Even later in her illness when she developed diabetes and needed to eat regularly and at certain times she was reluctant to say anything. She would get incredibly angry at her doctors who, with the best intentions, would often say things like "you've done so well to do your 'O'-Levels / go to university / travel / get married considering..." She felt that it took something away from her achievements.

Kay wasn't ever going to be able to have children, her body just wouldn't have been able to stand the strain pregnancy would have put on it. It was, apart from the disease itself, one of the biggest sorrows of her life. When she got married to her soulmate, the sorrow became even harder to bear. I would go and stay with her when her husband was away and we would have long, late-night discussions about if it would be possible for me to be a surrogate. I would have done anything for Kay and we were actually going to make enquiries when she got sick with what turned out to be her final illness.

One of my most treasured possessions is the last birthday present Kay gave me: a wire egg holder. I keep it on the kitchen window sill and every day it reminds me of my beloved best friend, and of life's little ironies.