It's strange how things happen sometimes. Every year about this time I always think about an old school friend of mine.
Then, as I'm clearing away some things in the house this week this photograph on the left drops out onto the floor - it's a photo I've not seen in a long time.
A group of friends, about 14 years old, I'm guessing, crammed into a photo booth just for fun. All 8 of us, so full of hopes and dreams.
Incase you're wondering, that's me on the left with the fuzzy fringe.
So what's strange about this photo making an appearance this week? Well, the girl above me is no longer with us. Katie was killed on this very day back in 1995. Her life snatched from her in a car crash at the tender age of 20.
I think her death affected me more than I let on as I still think about her now, 16 years on and think about what she would have achieved. Her life was pretty perfect, she was young, beautiful and extremely talented.
I still think about how her funeral was the first funeral I'd ever been to and I still remember the faces of her parents and her younger sisters walking behind the coffin.
I remember how one of my friends mothers picked us (two friends and myself) up after the funeral. My friend had a mother you didn't mess with, she was permanently moody (I kid you not) but her mood that day was so warm and affectionate, like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was probably the fact that the 3 of us were all propping each other up in pool of tears or maybe it was just a strange relief that it wasn't her daughter who had been taken from her. Now I'm a parent myself I understand more about how all our parents must have felt when this tragedy hit the community.
I still remember how I hadn't seen Katie for such a long time as she'd been away at Uni then about a week before the accident I'd bumped into her in the local pub. We'd shared some talk and a hug.
Then this happened.
As I say, it's strange how things happen sometimes.
