Dean's Blog

Five weeks ago I lost a friend through suicide. It was yet another friend who had departed this life far too early. Yesterday I was sat in the Swedish pub “The Harcourt Arms” watching a game of football when I received a text notification that I had a facebook message. I opened the message and it read like a thunderbolt.

“Have you heard about Jessica’s death?”

I have five friends on Facebook named Jessica but I immediately knew what this was referring to. My friend Jessika had gone into hospital last week to give birth to her first child. The baby was several days late and as the news was quiet people were just wondering what had happened. When the news came through via that due to complications both mother and child were dead my hand began to shake. When I say shake I don’t mean a little, it was like a crystal glass on a table during a force 8 Earthquake.

I had to make my way through London to get home and left pretty much immediately, gazing out at the window into the London I tried to make some kind of sense in the world I live in. Looking at all the people running around like headless chickens, people full of ideas, hopes and dreams only to see them diluted by normality. Though the journey only took one hour I think I covered a multitude of subjects, faith, friendship, life and death. I thought of the people I have loved, the people I have lost and asked the eternal question “What is the meaning of this, why are we here?”

Jessika was one of those people that never took life too seriously, her attitude was mature yet juvenile, optimistic yet realistic and she always had an answer for whatever life threw at her. It is that very attitude that many of us lose somewhere along the way in life, we forget what our dreams were and we age, gracefully yet end up blending into some form of routine. I don’t want that.

I think about the last words we ever said, the times we would be up all night trying to put the world to rights via facebook or text. Then I think about how lucky many of us are, we get to watch our children play everyday, we get to see our loved ones faces, the beauty of nature and the joy that life can bring. Then there is the sadness, Jessika will never get to see her daughter, never get to be a mother and never get to share anything that we all take so much for granted.

I’ve lost too many friends lately, maybe that is a sign of the society and times that we live in, or maybe I am just the most unlucky person there is. But when I read that line I know that statement is foolish. I am lucky, very lucky. Life may throw challenges at me but the very essence of being alive is what makes it all so worthwhile. Like those I viewed I will have days where normality takes over I will have days where I will spend it daydreaming. Yet Jessika’s death has taught me a valuable lesson.

The lesson is that I am so lucky to have the ability to be doing what I love. My writing is no longer an ambition for me, it is my destiny. My friends that have left this planet will never be forgotten, I will ensure that. Through my writing their names, memories and lives will live on as long as I have an audience. Someone once said to me “When a loved one dies, live your life in celebration of theirs” and that is exactly what I am going to do.

We are only here on Earth for a brief moment in time yet we all have the ability to leave an impact no matter how little it maybe. If the lives we live touch the hearts of just one person then that is the most wonderful legacy we can leave behind. Some maybe famous, others fade into the wind but there is one lesson above all that I am going to carry forward. That lesson is simply this

Life is the most precious thing that we possess, never waste a second, and never stop believing. Once you do it’s over.

R.I.P Jessika Peach. Thank you for being a true friend, your name will live on in my work for eternity.