Your sphere of light has left impressions in my heart. A childhood full of love; buoyant memories ingrained in my mind. I am lucky to have lived my life with you, a sweet soul who taught me so much about kindness and gratitude and friendship. I still live with you - I look up and see your twinkling star in the clear night sky and think about the magnificent mark you made on my life that makes me a better person. Bringing so much fun like colouring our hair multicolored with sharpies when we were young to actually dying our hair red (although yours never did wash out when it was supposed to be semi permanent). Or making Frankie think we were part of a Spy club that had to complete secret missions and of course our ‘cool for the summer’ music video which I have now classified as ‘Ellame and Alice’s summer anthem’ and even firing water with a water gun through peoples open car windows into their faces as they drove past. I also used to find comfort in looking over at you when we did Ariel knowing that we had eachothers backs. I especially love the ‘fight’ we had with the boys at the green when we put up our own swing ( we won because we had many good comebacks). And that time we learnt the whole Parent Trap handshake. As well as the drain game that we used to play on the way to school ( basically had to run to as many drains as possible and collect points, yellow drains were worth 50 points) or you and Cherry’s continuous song about Jimmy and Vaseline ( ‘ what do you put on your lips when they’re dry Jimmy?’). So many giggles, so many jokes, so much fun and memories that are worth more than diamonds. I love you and I miss you. Keep dancing beautiful girl. Xx
Alice
20th March 2024
Morning my lovely. I haven't written to you for a while, but I have been thinking a lot recently about drops and ripples. Drops of kindness and the ripples they create. The smallest of drops can create the largest of ripples, and the biggest of drops the most tiny, but they all matter. The most meaningful are those drops that no-one ever saw you create. The thing about ripples is that they do eventually disappear, so you do keep having to add those drops. But you knew all this. You didn't need to write it down or explain it - you just lived it every day in your beautiful Ellame way. When you left us you created so many hundreds of ripples - of pain, but also of goodness and charity and fight and determination. So I've decided to start filling the huge gaping Ellame-sized hole in my heart with little drops of kindness - and hopefully they will create some ripples in your name. And I won't ever stop, because every time I am flailing and then I think of you it will prompt me to add another drop. The hole is too big to ever fill up, but each drop will hopefully make it just that little bit smaller, and will send Ellame-inspired ripples into the world. And I believe everyone could benefit from an Ellame-inspired ripple. Hopefully anyone reading this can feel that Ellame drop of kindness coming their way, and will pass it on.....
P.S. When I asked on my run this morning whether you would like to show me you were with me, I didn't mean through the dog poo bag that immediately appeared swinging on a branch narrowly missing my head! xx
A Drop of Kindness
10th December 2023