Bout this time of year my mind turns to my friend Trudy.
I met her when I was about 16 or 17 through a Crohn's society magazine pen pal exchange thing in 1994. I had never really wanted to write to anyone before who thee disease because none of the ads seemed like people I would get on with. However, as far as I can remember Trudy mentioned that she was a drummer and was into music like “Alice in Chains and Smashing Pumpkins” two bands I was very into at the time. Still enjoy too. She lived in Australia and had had the same operation as myself at a young age. So I took a chance and I guess she liked me too because I got a reply! We wrote to each other often. She got very ill couple of times and needed some more operations but unlike myself always seems to be so positive and upbeat about her life. She went to China at one stage to teach English to children. I remember her sending me a photo of her dressed up in a kimono and writing about a funny incident with a squat loo and no door over there. My lips are sealed. When she went back to Oz, she worked in forestry. That was Trudy all over. She never seemed to like to do the “norm”.
She was always very active and like I say positive. When things got hard for me not just with the disease but in my life in general she was always there and I’d write to her, she’d write back and usually make me smile. We continued to write to each other over the years. She wrote to me around Christmas 2000 to say she’d be visiting Scotland for work and wanted to take some time to come visit me in Dublin. I was delighted but nervous. I’m not always good face to face, I’m really shy and not very confident, and I need not have worried. In Jan 2001, we met for coffee in Dublin. It was so easy and great to spend time with and talk to someone who understood the worry, panic, pain and all the other shit ways this curse of a disease hits you. We did some shopping and she got a conch piercing lol as you do randomly out of the blue. When it was time for her to go we said goodbye and she said she’d be back in a couple of months and wed have more time.
She wrote me in February to say she was home again and to see how I was as it was not a good time for me, messy and painful break up and so on. She said she’d be back in a month or two to visit again.
In March she send me a post card with a gorgeous photo of the beach near her home dated 15th March saying something like “ you should come visit me here some day” and that she’d be in touch soon.
In mid April, I went home on my lunch from work and found a letter from her. She liked to make her own recycled paper and envelopes, which was lovely to get in your post box. So I knew it must be Trude mail and opened it smiling.
Out fell a card as I pulled the letter out. The card was hers too. Printed on the card was that “When I am gone” poem.
My stomach knotted.
I opened the letter and saw immediately it was not her handwriting. Trude's letters were like reading a doctor prescription. This letter was from her sister.
Trudy had taken her own life on St Patrick’s Day.
I sobbed. She seemed so upbeat when we met. I wish she’d let me in I wish I could have seen it. In the letter, she said they had spread Trude's ashes on an island at the beach near her home.
My mind raced to the postcard. Had it been her way of saying goodbye.
I sent a single yellow rose to her family and asked them to put it at her place. I wrote them a letter telling them how sad I was and how glad I was that we’d met. They replied a couple of times and her sister wrote me a few times but she wasn’t Trudy. She was the opposite. So the communication fizzled out.
I often think of Trude. Especially on St Patrick’s day but more happily whenever I see those furry Kangol hats she always seem dot have one on in her pics, even on the day I met her!
I hope she is somewhere better, happy, and healthy and pain free.
I miss her rambling scrawled her crazy paper. I miss my friend.
Codladh maith mo Chara.
