Meredith

A girl I knew when I was at school was buried last week. She was in the year below me, but one of those younger girls that you know with an older sensibility. She was lovely and calm and funny and beautiful. She lived in the same village as me when I went on my school exchange programme. She was the one who reminded me that normal people existed when my borderline schizophrenic exchange partner would decide that she could no longer bear me in her house, so she would take me round to see her friend and mine: the Mediator.

During that two week exchange, we talked about boys and school and life and love. I had always known of her, but in two weeks I got to know her. And when we came back and she drifted back to her social group and me to mine, I was grateful for those two weeks. They had begun something. A knowing smile when a song came on. A glint of the eye when one of us would overhear a name in the other's conversation and know a secret about the be-named one that hadn't been shared with anyone else. A warm feeling when the other one was laughing because we'd know when the last time the other had cried was.

You don't need a lifetime to grow to love someone, and Meredith, I loved you.