14

 Fourteen years ago, Kelly died. When I got the news, I was speeding across Belfast in a cab with my Mum and my brother, trying to get to the hospital. 

It was the worst day of my life. The pain hasn't gone away, and it never will. She was only 36 years old. You don't know with these things. Well, I didn't. I had no frame of reference at all. You think it will ease, and I suppose it has, a bit. But the anger, the outrage, the deep well of sadness, they're all still there, impediments to her memory, all the shit I have to wade through to get to her. I still get a jolt when a picture of her pops up on my social media feeds. People post them on anniversaries like this and, of course, people have every right to post the pictures of Kelly. A lot of them knew her a lot longer than I did. They were her friends. I don't own her memory, I don't have a claim on their relationship with her. But it still hits me in the guts. She was so great, and so young. I never get past the fundamental, and fundamentally stupid question: why her? Why did it have to be her? Of all the people in the world, why take the best one? 

I'll not go to the grave today. I went for her birthday and I'll go for the Wedding Anniversary. I'm not about to commemorate her death. She was all about life. She was so vivid and vibrant. Again the question: why her?