With a little help from my friend

I have this friend called Caroline and without her, I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have coped in the past few years. She will be super embarrassed and probably tell me off for this post, but I’m going for it anyway!

We met 12 years ago when I moved to a new area, I had no friends with kids and didn’t know a soul. We met at playgroup when I saw her toddler son wearing a Stone Roses tshirt and was smitten. I went home and called Timm. “I met someone like me!” I cried.  We joke that we then ignored each other for a year. But in 2005, we both had sons within a month of each other and our friendship bloomed.

When we became friends and starting hanging out together, my husband Timm was working away a lot, for months on end and Caroline and her partner Jim took me under their wings. It’s hard when you have a partner who works away, weekends are the worst as you feel you can’t intrude on other peoples family time so it can be very lonely.  Caroline always made me feel welcome and helped so much during that time.

Our boys have grown up together and the other children too and Caroline and Jim have become the best of friends with myself and Timm.   When we first introduced the men, we were worried they wouldn’t like each other, luckily they quickly became firm friends and from there have had so many adventures in the form of Responsible Fishing, their arts company.

Since I got so ill and started having surgeries, Caroline has been my rock.  I just can’t explain quite how much she has made everything better.  She was there. Not just physically but emotionally, she was there.

She has:

Visited

Hugged

Looked after kids

Cleaned

Cooked

Washed me

Held my hand

Listened to me shout and cry

Taken me out

Looked after my family

Looked after my pets

Encouraged me

Made me laugh

Allowed me to cry

Watched crap telly in my bed with me

A million other things…

She is the best friend I could ever wish for and I can’t believe my luck that I managed to find someone so bloody wonderful.  I am so grateful to have such a beautiful, amazing, sensitive, loving and creative soul to share my life with.  She is just the best.

The past 3 years have been the worst of my life.  There have been times where I just couldn’t get out of bed, the sadness on my shoulders was so heavy.  I felt as though there was a big, dark hole in my heart and it was spreading. It stopped the blood flowing to my limbs so they were heavy and didn’t want to move. It hurt my chest with it’s weight making me catch my breath. It hurt my brain by sending all the anxious thoughts in the world swirling around.

Throughout it all, Caroline has always been there, knowing and understanding, listening and hugging. She knows when to call and visit and when to give me time. She has been everything.

I just wanted to take this time to thank my amazing friend. For being everything.

Caroline, I’m sorry if this embarrasses you, but you are wonderful and I love you very, very much.  Your support, kindness and love has helped my family and myself more than you’ll ever know and I will never be able to repay you.

Sam xx