Remembering

Every now and again my mind goes back to my encounters with Sophia, 6½ years ago. Some people don't understand why this has affected me so much, all those years afterwards. I do not dwell on what might have been. Whoever encountered her had a similar and profound experience. She opened right up to me - and I could do the same. We talked into the night, and on the last evening, it was 2.45 am before I left.

Sophia died of heart failure, brought on by a chest infection. I was told she had been suffering a bad cough in the days and weeks before her death. Some would say she didn't look after herself very well. But, I knew that she didn't take telling. A free and independent spirit, and that was probably the reason I didn't want to shackle her down in a "relationship". Hate that word.

I can still see her smiling face in the fading light of that March evening in 2013, with her little cat Torran. The angle-poise lamp, lit for my convenience. Yes, we shared a hug. Nothing wrong or untoward with that. I can still see the anguish in her face, as she battled with depression, which she held at bay by having a "stomp on the beach" nearby, or at Griminish, a few miles up the road. I was very pleased to hear that her participation in An Radio (now defunct) helped to lift her moods out of the darkness. The last photographs of her, cycling in Berneray, display that happiness.

The searing sense of loss, experienced by many, is as nothing as that shown by her cat. Although now happily living in a new forever home, I'm sure she still somewhere expects the tall figure of Sophia to come striding up to the house to collect her. She will return. When it is time for Torran to cross the Rainbow Bridge.

Sophia lives on in those who remember her, and I'm privileged to rank myself among them.

I may cross the Sound of Harris before the winter comes, and leave a little tribute near her old home in Berneray and / or North Uist.