Weds 3rd August 2022 1200+hrs BST

 

I had a friend named Eve. We met online at heart conditions support forum and soon realised we lived only a few physical miles from one another. Our heart health conditions meant f2f meet-ups were usually far too difficult to organise and we became primarily email pen pals. 

 

Over the too few years I knew her, her emails seemed to miraculously arrive to my inbox just when I needed a good giggle and natter and rail against the machine. To say I found her friendship priceless is an enormous understatement and I can only hope she was being more truthful than kind when she'd tell me she found my emails 'just the tonic'. 

We shared political gossip and rants, 'housekeeping for Lady Hearties' tips, heart and diabetes safe recipes, ghostie stories (oh my word Eve had some hair-raising personal experiences to share!), craft ideas, jokes, worries Russia is about to nuke Scotland (Trident) and the cost of living crisis brought on first by Sunak's insane overspends during Covid and his refusal to chase down the fraudsters, and the eye-watering price rises thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We talked about EVERYTHING including our religious beliefs, our families, our lives from childhood (hers was harrowing which made her even more admirable considering how she dealt with it and got her life sorted so well) and our mutual military and polis careers - I served in the USCG-R and later went on to work with the police as what is now known as a forensic psychologist consultant. 

 

I can't say what she did beyond saying she held highly responsible positions with the Army and the Met until she retired. Eve and I were frontline participants of the equal rights for women days and we had quite a lot to say about the current crop of 'Anything you can do, I can do better' lassies, not all of it nice and rightly so, them that are ungrateful little whingers.

Her emails were the highlight of my day ranking right up there with emails and snaps from my newest DIL and when a few days would pass without a word from her especially during the last six months of her life I'd know she was in hospital again. I'd send her a 'Write when you can' email and then check the inbox several times a day hoping to see a note from her.

 

Her health was much worse than my piddly little complaints, she'd been T2D for years and 20 or so years ago was discovered to have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). The diabetes, despite being meticulously managed, eventually led to a chronic liver condition. 

 

Frankly Eve was something of a medical miracle in that despite her multiple life-limiting and threatening conditions, she had managed to not only survive but avoid becoming a full-on invalid for so many years. It was only the last 18 months of her life she slowly went from being quite active and fully engaged in/with Life to semi-invalidism including periodic 'incarcerations' (her words) in hospital, a place she absolutely loathed especially after the penultimate hospitalisation during which she was accidentally (on purpose, she believed) put on a 'female' ward that included trans-women who'd retained their dangly bits and full mustaches and beards yet were determinedly addressed and referred to in the feminine. As a consequence of some of the behaviours these ward-mates displayed, Eve was determined to never go back to that hospital again.

 

Then in late June 2022 her health disintegration caused her to collapse and be taken to hospital intensive cardiac unit care. Only her husband was permitted to visit her.

She fought for weeks to once again beat the odds and stagger breathlessly back out into the world. Sadly, however, hospital acquired pneumonia stole her life 18 July 2022.

She was 78 years old, was 'vain but in a good way' (said by mourners through smiles and sobs during the wake yesterday) with a stunning wardrobe ranging from leopard and tiger print tops and leggings to the most elegant silks - my friend Eve had delightful taste and I loved seeing her latest outfits. She wouldn't leave the bedroom until she had applied make-up and a wafting of exquisite perfumes even when her diary included nothing more than a trip from bedroom to sofa in the sitting room.

 

She'd led an absolutely amazing life that included highly successful and hugely interesting careers in the British Army AND the Metropolitan Police (before it went all woke, long before - Eve had some very interesting stories about her military and police careers to share, always careful not to overshare and violate the Secrecy Act). 

 

She was married twice, once to an out and out rotter for a few years just long enough to fall pregnant and deliver three children, and then to a wonderfully 'perfect in his imperfections' gentleman who gave her just over forty years of married joy. He is understandably utterly devastated at the loss of the light of his life.

 

She raised two sons and a daughter who gave her a now grown granddaughter. Two of her children and her granddaughter survive her and it is my everlasting hope that when she opened her eyes 'on the other side', her deeply missed son was who welcomed her to Heaven. 

She gave me so much more than I fear I gave her, she was politically astute, generous, deeply intelligent, no-nonsense yet incredibly kind. I will miss her terribly for the rest of my life.