Yesterday was All Hallows, when we remember those who have gone on ahead. Today was the day, six years ago, that one of my friends passed away in the night. Sophia was not found until three days later, when her social media acccounts remained silent over a weekend. Her life was music and dance, and in the few encounters, she opened up about the challenges she had faced, and the promises that had been left unfulfilled. I remember the March evenings, when darkness fell after 7pm, when she lit an angle-poise lamp for my convenience. I would leave well after midnight. I only met her a few times in 2013, but opportunities to meet up again were lost in circumstance. Her voice remains in recordings of the radio programme she did on a now-defunct radiostation in Uist, and the memories remain with those who knew her. Sophia saw herself as a mermaid, and would swim in the sea. After I learned of her passing, I felt she had swum away in the night. Her little cat was finally retrieved nearby and is now living her life with people that love her. One day, Sophia will come striding up the garden path to take Torran across the Rainbow Bridge.
Quite a few of my female friends have passed away in the two decades I have spent in Stornoway. Mostly, they could not be anywhere but near the sea.
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