Two nights ago I received the worst email I believe I could ever get. I found out one of my dear friends had died, a girl, in my heart, I loved as much as my flesh and blood. She was a sister to me. Her friends had tried to call but I had changed my number so they sent an email as a last resort. She passed out sometime Monday morning and died of multiple organ failure that night. She was only 21.
I spent most of last night trying to think of some way to keep her memory alive. Some speech or writing that could encompass the life that she led. And last night I realised that no words could ever meet the standards she deserved. So I set to writing a thread just like this, knowing that it would never be enough but that, at least, it would be something. And then I froze. Because the life we, and others, had shared was never meant to be revealed. We lived in the knowlegde that our private lives remained private. That was our oath.
But lives deserved to be remembered. Perhaps I’ll regret writing this, and betraying the trust of those I call kin, but for now I know that these words need to be told, need to be remembered by as many people as I can reach. People need to understand that people like my sister existed, and still exist, in the world.
Her name was Faith. We first met at the age of ten. We like all of our “family”, so to speak, were “too smart for our own good”. We excelled at school, we held mature views of the world, we understood the pain and atrocity that the world underwent and we wanted to make a difference. And by some fortune our paths in life crossed.
It’s hard to explain the rest of the story without trying to get you to understand the relationship that formed between us. We were extremely young but independent souls, part of a group that established inter-relationships beyond family and friends and lovers. We would live and die for each other, without a second thought. We loved each other beyond all measure.
For years we were inseparable. But fate led us away from each other. Our common purpose of “healing the world” faltered when I tried to settle down into a normal life. She never gave up though. She made it her mission to make the world a better place.
Once we had grown and matured and actually had an ability to go out and help, my sister went out without a second thought. She had been an orphan since the age of seven so it probably seemed fitting to her that she should help the children of the world, well at least of the country. While I was at university she was travelling the country with a friend or two finding the lost and homeless children that she could find, offering her advice and showing them a path that could lead them to a better life. She had no funding, she would never want any. She made her living as we used to as children, with whatever jobs were offered to us. She had no dislike for what she did. Despite the everlasting struggle it was, she embraced it. And I wished I could have joined her.
Even with the constant crusade she found herself upon she always found time for me. She was like a sister after all. We would always stay in touch wherever she was, she would always make time just to say hello. Whenever something was wrong she would know instinctively and be there to talk. She would travel across the entire country to meet me, just because we hadn’t had dinner together in at least a month. She was one of the greatest people I had ever known and the world is a dimmer place without her.
I miss you so much Faith, and I will love you and your passion forever.
But I’m not looking for sympathies here because frankly Faith would have told you all to shove it somewhere I can’t mention here. And she’s right. She doesn’t need sympathy and neither do I. But Faith deserves remembrance. She has no family to give her a service. Her ashes will be scattered by her few friends and that will be the end of it. But I don’t want it to be. Fuck the oath we took she deserves the world to know what she did for it. And she would want those others who deserved to be remembered to be remembered. So this is not a thread for remorseful words, for sorry, or my thoughts are with you. This is a thread for you to write about those forgotten souls who deserved to be remembered. Those who acted without thought of the world’s appreciation but deserved it nonetheless.
Don’t lessen the thoughts of those we consider heroes with apologies and well wishes but remember them with stories of their actions and bravery.