Eulogy for Darling Char
Sara Jackson, 20 Oct 05
I first met Soph and Char at DLTC 1987 and began a friendship that until this May I didn’t even consider would be rocked so early and tragically.
BBYO to me was many things but mainly it gave me a few of my firmest and most wonderful friends. Char, Soph and I graduated through DLTC and national weekends to holidays in Israel, inter-railing across France, crossing over at University in Manchester with Soph and at Leeds with Char and ending up in London together to carry on into the next phase of our lives.
Looking back on our 18 years of friendship most of my seminal times had Char in the background, right down to the final event of having our babies Jacob and Sam around the same time. As I write this I still find myself unable to really compute that she isn’t in my life anymore and that we won’t be having any new experiences, but I’m glad to say that her influence in my heart and life will remain with me always. Charlotte was one of the kindest and most beautiful people I have and will ever meet. As everyone who was privileged to share time with her knew, she worried and fretted that everyone she loved should be happy and content which at times made me concerned that she should spend a little more time looking after herself. But she also had a most enormous energy and capacity for joy and it gives me comfort to believe that she seemed to live her short life to the full. Every time we got together I learnt something new, either practically like where to sit in a restaurant in order to breastfeed and eat in peace, or just another reminder by her example to be kind and caring about all people and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. When my both my mum fell ill and my Dad passed away suddenly in 2003 Charlotte was the rock that she’d always been, and the fun letters of our childhood through student cups of tea to working glasses of wine turned to hugs and texts and unerring support through those tough times.
When
she first left us I thought that I would probably miss her every day of
my life and now, just 5 months on, I know that to be true.
Because although we may only have spoken every month or met every few,
she was a constant that I simply hadn’t expected to be without.
Many things make up my memories, her huge enthusiasm for my squashy
nose and big boobs, the fact that I couldn’t have a conversation with
her that wasn’t interrupted by us veering off onto numerous other
subjects before returning to the original topic, the fact that every
time we spoke or met or wrote she told me how much she loved me, the
grace she had in facing her illness, the time she took to teach me
whatever she knew, the way she underplayed things like calling the
effects of chemo “a bit like a bad hangover”, our museum trips where
art took on a whole new meaning, our walks on primrose hill pre and
post babies, her innate sense of style, her voice on the phone, the
concern in her eyes, the love in her heart. One day in
early May I decided to act on my instinct and send her a bunch of
flowers just because I wanted to tell her I loved her and was proud of
how she was coping with chemo. When she called to thank me we had
what was to be our last conversation and as always it was full of love
and thanks from her and her overriding instinct not to cause worry
about how she was.