Feel empty at the death of my friend.

a3racerMon 18/08/08 08:00

Kay Smith 1st November 1947 to 17th August 2008

Yesterday started out as a normal day for me but has ended as one of the hardest and most difficult ones I have ever had to face. For I feel as though I have lost a soul-mate, a best friend and a bingo partner all rolled into one.

I first met Kay many years ago just after she moved back to Surrey from Staffordshire, my old stomping ground, after her divorce from her husband. I had been working for a coach company called Tellings Golden Miller where I met Kay's brother-in-law Mike. Fairly soon after meeting Mike I was popping in for tea or coffee on the way home from work. It was during one of these meetings that I met Kay and we sort of clicked from day one.

I recruited Kay into being my secretary for the Silver Circle a club for the elderly which ran on a Saturday twice a month. She was great at dealing with the old dears as we called them. She soon made lots of friends among the group.

However, the friendship that grew between us was very deep and long lasting. I adored Kay's sense of fun and her honesty because she was always open about the fact that she couldn't provide everything that her sons wanted at the time. Yet, she always managed some how to provide the basics and turn out some wonderful meals no matter how many people landed on her door step.

We had many Silver Circle adventures over the years. We carried on working together for the club until it was closed. Our friendship carried on. I remember Liz telling me once that Kay rather fancied me and so Liz had to explain but that didn't dampen the friendship spark between us.

We started going to Kay's second home the bingo hall.

I think we gelled together because we both felt a bit like a ship at sea bobbing along on the waves because neither of us had it easy. We helped each other out be it with tins of this or that or with the loan of a bit of cash. I knew she liked bingo so I'd treat her every couple of weeks because to me it was only money and what price do you put on a friends happiness. In friendship you don't keep a list of what you do for each other.

I remember when she moved into the Brookfield home we decorated the place together because the colours and papers used were really bad. It just had to be done. We had a system that she did the lower bits and I did the higher bits. We would natter about everything and anything stopping for a cup of tea and perhaps a bit of cake. We would work through until the job was done or do it over a couple of days. At the end of each day we were so tired from all the hard work we would pop along to the Fish & Chip shop and just relax admiring our work.

We did the entire flat together over a number of years with the living room being the last room we did only two months ago. Having stripped the wallpaper and repainted it just showed up how bad the walls were and we were due to paper it in a couple of months. How I wish we could still do that together.

The strongest memory I have of Kay is just after I was attacked and it was then confirmed that I had HIV. I fell apart but she remained claim and strong throughout and was a great support to me. I can almost still feel the embrace if I allow my memory to feel the emotion of the day. The simple human warmth and support I felt then was so comforting and uplifting. The love was shown with simple little acts of kindness which may not have meant much to other people but to me it was like winning the lotto.

I'd always promised that I'd buy Kay a nice cottage by the sea in Devon because that's where she wanted to live. If it were in my power I would have done it. Sadly, it was not to be.

Kay was the first person I showed my new flat to when I was offered it. Then she did perhaps the biggest thing for me at the time that anyone did. She bought and paid for those fake wooden floor titles for my hallway. It only cost about £20.00 to do the floor but when one thinks of the amount of hard work she did to earn that money and what a difference it made to her own budget. That was a massive thing to do and what made it more special was that we laid the floor together. The curtains in my bedroom were also from Kay and that will give me comfort at night times.

What I liked about Kay was the welcome you always had from her and if you wanted to stay for tea you could. It was the ease of simply being in each other company watching TV, playing bingo or doing hard graft together. It was the gift of time we gave to each other that was so special because those hours and minutes were gone forever and couldn't be used for anything else. Yet one always assumed that more hours and minutes together would be spent.

I feel that a massive gap has been left in my life with Kay's passing. I just can't get my head around the fact that I'll never she her again. We'll never share a cup of tea together with me choking on her cigaret smoke. She was the only person that I'd put up with smoking because she meant so much to me. Sure I'd tease her and get on to her about her health but she would always say, 'Its my only pleasure in life.' In many senses it was true because god knows she worked herself silly to pay the household bills and to keep her head above the water.

Kay was a victim of the system. She fell outside all of the brackets where she could get help. So she soldiered on alone and with no support from the State. It was only in the last month that she was in a situation to reduce her hours at work to three days a week. Yet she should have been able to give work up last November when she reached 60 years of age but she couldn't. She had to keep going to pay the bills.

I salute Kay for her dedication to her sons, her parents and family. Every day she would ring her mother and weekly she would make the trip to visit her parents and do whatever need to be done. That was the type of woman Kay was everyone else came first even before her own needs.

Her pleasure and mine was our Sunday afternoon bingo together that has been an established pattern for years. Then we would have dinner together afterwards and watch TV until I went home.

In beginning it was just the two of us but then Lesley joined our Sunday afternoon trips until Lesley moved to Bridlington a few years back. I learnt early on that I couldn't get a word in once Kay and Lesley started talking. The only time I might be able to slip a word in was perhaps coming up to the start of an interval. Still it was fun to listen to them natter. Those were some of the happier times in the bingo hall.

I remember Gareth joining us one Sunday and they both thought he was a handsome young man and they both thought we looked happy in our friendship and we did and still are. Kay had wondered if we were going to be a couple because she said that we seemed to fit.

Kay and I fitted into our friendship. We couldn't spend as much time together in the latter years because Kay was working all the time and I was very ill at stages and found even standing to cook rather difficult at one time. That's why Kay's home cooked meals will always remain one of my happy memories. Kay's roast spuds were the best I ever had and her dinners were just out of this world. You couldn't eat as well in a fancy restaurant.

Last Christmas Kay and I spent it together. The boys were at their fathers so it seemed a good idea to spend it together. I introduced Kay to the Apple Crump which she loved. It was just so nice and rel