The Death of
Nicky aged 20

HER MEMORY LIVES ON
Nicky meant a great deal to many people.
Sue, her friend, pays tribute to her life.

Our friend, Nicky Walmsley died just a few days before Christmas. She was 20 years old. Her death was `Solvent' related and to those who do not, or have never known her, it would seem, on the surface to be `just another sad drug-related young person's death'. But it was far more than that to all those who did know her and who had shared many moments of her short life with her. Those moments were spent in all sorts of different situations and scenarios spanning nearly ten years as Nicky went through `Care' and `Hospitalisation', with Social Workers, Counsellors, Psychiatrists, Be-frienders and a host of people who played key parts in her life. All of us, all who had known her for any length of time were devastated to lose her last Christmas.

Nicky meant many things to many people. She had a unique and specialised rapport with every individual personality that made up the `we' that were so privileged to have shared so many moments of her life with her. A lot of people could write this tribute to Nicky describing their own particular involvement with her through the many different experiences they shared with her through the years. My own experience belongs in the YWCA, Blackburn, during 1997 where Nicky lived up until the time of her death.

The first time I met Nicky I was horrified. Her arms were slashed to ribbons through repeated deep razor-blade cutting over many years. I was afraid of the intensity of emotions housed in Nicky which caused her to hurt herself so badly, and I didn't know what to say, how to deal with what I saw, what to feel or what to do, in the beginning. All I did know was that I was witnessing more `pain' than I had ever seen in anyone in my life. She had the most beautiful face though, and her eyes were lovely, and her smile was enough to light up any room she entered. Within a very short while it was easy to focus on her beauty and her incredible personality and my fears abated, and I steadily got to know her. How glad I am that I did.

Nicky knew a lot about suffering. She had been traumatised badly at the hands of `some' who should have loved, protected and nurtured her. The damage to her was mountainous. She carried her pain visibly and it was a giant weight around her soft and gentle neck. She had `seen too much', `done too much', and `had too much done to her' to ever have had a chance to truly believe in herself or to believe she had a future worth pursuing. She had a great big hole where her feelings of being valuable should have been, and nobody, not even the best experts available could fill that hole up when Nicky came to them after the damage was done. All who were involved with her over the years tried their best to put something positive into that hole in Nicky's heart, but Nicky had little will to live, little hope, and she lived within a vast ocean of emotional pain.

During the months through the Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter of 1997, it seemed to me that time-stood still for one long moment as we became fused with Nicky's Soul. She brought with her all that had happened to her in the past, all that she felt and all that she `was' to the house which shared that powerful moment in time. Her despair, her heartbreak, her tears, her intense pain, her anger, her frustration, her confusion, her outrage, her terror and her nightmares. She also brought her love, her loyalty, her understanding, her wisdom, her wit, her sense of humour, her generosity, her intuitiveness, her kindness, her warmth, and her beautiful beautiful smile. And she also brought her `bravery' and her `strength' which had kept her alive for many years, against all the odds.

She loved the Ocean, she loved Dolphins, she loved the colour Blue. She loved `Tracy Chapman' and `Celine Dion'. She loved wind chimes that made pretty sounds like `whispers on a breeze'. She loved glass painting and she had a great talent for it. She had a collection of beautiful artwork. She loved her cat `Dingle' who she named after the famous Dolphin called `Dingle' who has spent so many years delighting visitors to Dingle Bay in Ireland. She said the single-most happiest time of her entire life was when she visited Dingle Bay and was able to swim with the Dingle Dolphin. She loved `anything' that was free. She loved to `be' loved and she loved to `give' love. She cared about anyone who was vulnerable, oppressed, depressed, or just `down'. And she had no chip on her shoulder about anyone who was doing `well' in life. She was glad for them. She was honourable and fair in her dealings with other people. She was an amazing person. The only person she found it impossible to love was `herself'. Past events had put paid to that.

1997 was a deeply spiritual journey for me by the `knowing of Nicky'. It was for all of us who shared that time together. She touched each and every one of us in the deepest parts of us all. She mirrored all our own fears and insecurities, and she forced us to confront many aspects of ourselves, which we would have preferred to ignore or deny. There were no half-measures with Nicky. She demanded sincerity and would settle for nothing less in her relationships with people. She put a high-price on honesty and justice and she had an acute awareness of the higher ideals of life. She was all these things in the midst of the extent of her tortured life. And these things lived and breathed within her with a `passion' despite the overwhelming amount of problems she had to contend with every moment she was alive.

But she was tired, and she was weary and her life already seemed to have lasted a thousand years. `Too many bad memories' she would say, which were always clouding over the horizon of her future.

She sought relief from her pain, her memories and her nightmares with substances that would blot out the hurt and the fear and she knew she was living close to the edge all the time. We knew this too. In the end a `Solvent' accident caused her to die, but it was an accident which had been `begging' to happen for a very long time. She seemed to know that she would not be alive to greet the Christmas of 1997, and she had given an indication of this in various ways to some of her friends at the YWCA. She knew `something' was going to happen the way people sometimes do `know' when their time on earth is coming to an end. The last time she gave me a hug it went on `forever' and afterwards she looked deep into my eyes for a very long moment and smiled that smile of hers. It meant something, I knew, but I didn't understand `what'. It left me with a strange feeling which I couldn't define. It was the last and best hug we ever had. Days later she was `gone' and the YWCA was awash with grief.

Her room was left filled to brimming with the expression of her spirit, her soul, her talent, her feelings and her `being'. The cuddly toys that filled a corner of it. Her beautiful glass-painted artwork, her drawings and paintings, her dolphin ornaments, her posters, her poems and all the things that were `her'. We took some `keepsakes' from her belongings to keep with us always in remembrance of her. I took some beautiful dolphin wind chimes that make pretty sounds like `whispers on a breeze'. On the 20th February the YWCA held an event in special `Celebration of Nicky's life'. People who had known her throughout the previous years came to join in respectful and deeply affectionate memory of her. We read out our feelings about her and poems written by friends were put in a special `keepsake' booklet. We tied tags with personal messages written upon them onto hoards of yellow balloons and let them go into the sky together. We planted a Cherry Blossom Tree in the garden of the YW which will grow and always be there to honour her.

We miss Nicky so much. We will always love her and we will never every forget her. How could we? She taught us all more about ourselves than anyone of us could ever teach her about herself. Her life may have been short but it was certainly not in vain.

Thank you Nicky.

With love, Susan.