We talked dating, office bitches and career changes, played online Scrabble together, shared an obsession with McDreamy in Grey’s Anatomy and discussed our dream of writing books… The usual stuff women in their late twenties and early thirties chat about. More fluff than deep and meaningful. The future was bright. We were excited to see what it held for us. Optimistic because we tried to be good people and good things would come our way.
Because Katie really was a good person. Not perfect – no one is – but bloody wonderful. A smile so wide – on a Facebook photo of Katie laughing she commented, ‘Good god how big is my mouth?!’ I now have that photo framed – a heart so big, laugh so loud and energy that was contagious.
She ran marathons and raised money for charities while I cheered her on from the side moaning about the cold. She travelled with passion and devoured novels with the same appetite as me. We saw each other as much as our busy lives allowed.
Katie married the love of her life, Rich, in a fairy tale winter wedding in December 2009. We jumped around the dance floor with our friend Karen and her other best mates to The Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling and Beyoncé’s Single Ladies.
When Katie and Rich returned from honeymoon, we arranged a girls’ night in with our friends Karen and Helen to celebrate Katie’s birthday. I’d love to be able to tell you everything we talked about that night but it’s a blur of red wine, cheese and very loud home-karaoke until the wee hours. I do know it was a hilarious evening making plans for the future. My last memory of Katie is standing at the window of the flat watching her get in the car with Helen and waving them off as they drove away.
Two weeks later the phone rang. It was Karen.
‘Katie’s dead.’
Confused, I asked which Katie. Because it wasn’t our Katie. She wasn’t sick. But it was. Katie had died the night before on 18 February 2010, her life tragically cut short when she died of carbon monoxide poisoning at home.
I can’t begin to describe the devastation Katie’s death left behind; and I won’t begin to compare my grief to that of her incredible family who I’ve remained in touch with.
The death of a friend is rarely talked about. When a friend dies, it doesn’t feel like you have the ‘right’ to grieve in the same way you can when a family member dies. Having lost my three grandparents in my late teens and twenties, I had experienced the sadness, loss and tears of grief, but while I still miss my grandparents to this day, losing Katie was, without doubt, the most devastating thing to happen in my life.
Grief is a physical pain. It sucks the air out of your lungs, pokes pins in your heart and twists your guts tight. The unexpected death of a loved one is surreal.
When Katie died, I called work and through sobs said I wouldn’t be coming in. Through tears I drove to my friend Karen’s flat – where just two weeks before we’d danced around singing and laughing – and sat in absolute shock. We messaged friends who’d worked with Katie so they would hear the news from someone they knew, and watched wide-eyed as Katie’s death made the London news, using an old photo of her that we knew she’d be pissed off about.
I don’t remember much from the first weeks following Katie’s death. You go back to work, but acting ‘normal’ feels like an insult. People don’t know what to say to you, whether to mention your friend or not. You’re emotional. Sensitive. Life is surreal. Just being alive feels like a betrayal of kinds.
The funeral was a blur of tears and shock for her friends and family. I’ve kept in touch with them over the past nine years. We mark Katie’s birthday and the anniversary of her death every year. We tag each other in photos and social media posts that bring memories flooding back. In 2019, Katie should have turned forty. A memorial service is taking place, which I know will be both emotional and uplifting.
Grief is there to fill the void left after death. When you lose a friend, you go through the grieving process of shock, anger and heartbreak. A million emotions and nonsensical thoughts. The loss of your future friendship, of what might have been. The guilt of knowing your own grief cannot be compared to that of your friend’s family. And yet, it’s there.
All these years later, my grief for Katie lingers and occasionally surprises me. Sometimes memories just fill me with joy. A song we sang together makes me smile. I achieve a life goal and think, ‘I wonder what Katie would make of this,’ while deep down knowing exactly what she’d think. At other times, I’m wracked with sobs. And then I’ll realize I’ve not thought about her for weeks and feel bad.
Katie’s death changed me. I think when a friend dies, a part of your heart dies too. You’ve tasted a bitterness of life that you never quite recover from. But Katie’s death also made me a better person. When I was experiencing an ongoing period of unhappiness, one of the things that motivated me to go to therapy was Katie’s death – because she doesn’t have the gift of life and I should be taking care of myself and making the most of mine. It’s not enough to be alive. You have to be living. That’s what Katie’s death taught me – and I’m thankful to have had that sweet friendship
