At 7.30am on that day I received a telephone call which was
to bring my whole world
crashing down on me.
I heard the words that I had dreaded for almost three years,
but thought I'd never, ever hear.
To start at the
beginning.....
Pebbles meets BamBam.... It was in the summer
of 1964, I was 12 years old, I was with some friends, we were
making our way home from the next street. There was a walkway, with houses
along it. As we got half way down the walkway we saw a bunch of boys outside
one of the houses, some leaning up against the wall, some sitting on it,
as boys did. They were around the same age as us, and as we passed by them
they moved from where they were standing/leaning and began to follow us,
shouting out comments, nice comments, I might add, and generally embarrassing
us 'shy' girls as they were 'boys'..and boys made our faces go beetroot red,
even without comments being shouted at us. I looked round at them, but although
there were about 5 or 6 of them, I only noticed 1 boy. He was tall..ok..so
everyone seemed tall to me as I was, (still am), tiny...but he WAS tall,
he had the cutest smile I'd ever seen and twinkling eyes, a cute little nose
and as I looked at him I watched his face go beetroot red...as red as mine
was...and...as in all great romantic books and movies.... 'our eyes met and
something wonderful happened'.
Shyness is the most evil thing in the world.
Shyness prevented us from being together forever. But it was how it was meant
to be. Despite knowing deep inside how the other one felt, neither he nor
I would tell each other the depth of our true feelings, the shyness prevented
it. We were both very insecure, which made us even more determined not to
let on how we felt...just in case we were rejected. The irony of it is, we
both DID KNOW how the other felt...we let it show, there was no mistaking
how we felt..it was in our eyes all the time.
'He' lived across the road from me. Although
I didn't have a garden, I lived in a ground floor flat that looked out onto
a lawn 33 feet long with a 3ft wall at the bottom. I had a back door and
a small patio, so from the back of my flat I could see his house clearly.
I became a 'window watcher'! Every chance I got I looked out of the window
at the back of the flat, or stood outside on the patio, just waiting to catch
a glimpse of 'him'. At the side of the block of flats where I lived was a
walkway, about 30ft long, 'his' house was opposite the walkway. I'd find
excuses to go out, to the shop on errands for my mum, to the post office
on the corner for a stamp...anything so I could walk along that little walkway
so I could look at his house as I walked. Sometimes I'd see him come out
of his house with a laundry bag..on his way to the launderette for his mum.
I'd rush about the place trying to find a bag of washing so I could also
go there. More often than not, I'd take a bag of clean stuff..just so that
I'd be able to use the launderette whilst he did. We must have had the cleanest
washing in London!
His street door had a window, with a little
net curtain hanging up. The curtain was always lacy, but despite the lace
it was easy to see shadows behind it. There was also a tiny window above
it, a kind of fanlight, and if you had good eyesight, which I did, you could
see the stairs inside his house, in front of 'his' street door. Sometimes
when I walked along that walkway I saw the front room window net curtains
twitch...or the little net curtain hanging at the front door twitch...or
see a figure sitting on the stairs inline with the little window at the top
of the door..looking out. 'He' was also a 'window watcher'..or rather a 'walkway
watcher'. He'd be looking out, waiting to catch a glimpse of me. I even used
to see the letterbox opening up from the inside and see a pair of eyes looking
out at me!
He went to the same school as I did, different
class though. He was 5 months younger than I was so he was in the year below
me. When we had first met it was in the summer holidays in between my 1st
and 2nd years at the school. 'He' had not yet started at my school. When
September came round and he joined my school he was in the same grade as
me. If he'd been just 7 weeks older we would have been in the same class.
School days were happier for me then. I loved going to school now, because
'his' classroom was next to mine...I saw him in the corridors when we all
had to change rooms for different lessons, I saw him in the playground at
break time...wherever I was, whatever day it was, he was always around....near
me. My whole life revolved around him and his around me. But it was after
school and weekends which were the best, when he and his friends and myself
and my friends would all meet up and hang around together.
The following year our school amalgamated
with another and it was split between two buildings 1st-3rd years in one
building and 4th-6th years in another. When I went into the 4th year I had
to go to another building...we were split..it was awful! We only saw each
other outside school..no glimpses in the corridor or standing together at
breaktime in the playground. We lived for evenings, weekends and school holidays.
The years went by, all my friends began going
dancing. Girls seemed to want to do that earlier than boys. He loved fishing
and was more interested in that than going dancing. He loved music and, together
with some friends they formed a band...none of them knowing how to play an
instrument! They taught themselves how to play. He chose the drums. Me out
dancing with my friends, him learning to play drums and practicing with the
other boys....we kind of drifted apart. He was never around any more, either
fishing or in his friend's garage practising drums. But we still had very
deep feelings for each other. Even when I met my husband when I was 17, I
still had feelings for 'him'...and the same with him...he met his wife a
year later but still felt very deeply for me. It's strange...we were now
with them, but still had feelings for each other. I sometimes wonder if that's
why it took us both so long to get married to our partners. Both of us had
been engaged to them for 6 years before our weddings, although we didn't
know that back then.
We now enter the 'bleak' years. I got on
with my life, he got on with his. Neither of us forgot the other, our feelings
for each other still there in our heads and hearts but that didn't stop us
loving our partners deeply. But it was a different love. First love, especially
at a young age, is always so different...and...first love never dies. In
times of trouble I'd call out to him in my head, to help me through. Unbeknown
to me at the time, he did the same. Calling for me to help him. Life carried
on, not knowing his whereabouts or what was going on in his life..until....I
picked up the local newspaper one day and flicking through it I found myself
staring at a photograph of him with his 5 brothers! His mum had married her
childhood sweetheart after they had met up again by chance. She had been
engaged to him before the war, but they lost touch and she then met 'his'
dad, married him and gave birth to the most wonderful creature in the world.
I still didn't know where he lived or what had gone on in his life during
those empty years but I knew he was still 'around'... somewhere.
Then a miracle happened. The school reunion
Website Friends Reunited was born. I'd bought a computer a year before, and,
'he' had bought one not long after. When a friend told me about the site
I couldn't wait to look at it. Since I'd got my computer I'd searched for
school reunion sites in the hope of finding 'him', but the only sites I found
were American ones. But here was a British site, with British schools and
British people looking for their old friends! When I looked up my old school
there were only a couple of names I recognised, his being one of them. The
other was a boy who had been in my class. I added my name to the list of
kids who had been in my year and then registered with the site. Straight
away I got an email from the other boy whose name I recognised. He told me
that he was on AOL and I wrote back telling him that I was too. Within minutes
I received an Instant Message from him and we 'spoke' on the computer. He
told me that he'd written to 'him' even though he didn't really remember
him, but recalled 'his' name as they had friends in common. He then told
me that 'he' was also on AOL...he'd got an email back from him. I asked him
what 'his' email address was and he gave it to me.
That night I sat in front of my PC. I had
put 'his' name into my 'Buddy List' and I waited for him to l log on. For
those who don't know..if you add someone to your Buddy List, as soon as they
log onto AOL their name appears on your list. I didn't know how long I'd
have to wait..some people check their email every day..more than once a day,
some every few days, few weeks...maybe he hardly ever logged on...I didn't
know. But he logged on around 7pm. I couldn't believe it when I saw his name
appear in my list. I was so nervous and my heart felt as if it was going
to burst out of my body. I sent him an Instant Message straight away. But
got no reply. What I didn't know at the time was that he'd logged on, then
gone downstairs to have his dinner. I sat there thinking he was ignoring
me. I was very nervous, and also a little upset that he wasn't answering
me. He didn't know me as 'Lyn', but by my real name, Daralyn... and I played
a little game with him in the Instant Message. I said 'Hello'.. and said
I knew he probably didn't know who I was but that my first name was now shorter
than it used to be and that my surname was now a lot longer. I said I'd known
him and all his brothers and I gave him his old address and gave other little
clues. About an hour or so later a reply appeared on my screen. He was very
polite and asked who I was, but I made him guess...and somehow, he guessed
correctly. He wasn't a typist..he was very slow, and he found it frustrating
having to type so slowly into the little box to speak to me. What I didn't
know at the time was, when he saw he instant message on his screen when he'd
sat at the PC after his dinner he'd not known what it was. He was still learning
how to use the PC and AOL. He called his wife up from downstairs straight
away and she read what I'd written. She was very pleased for him...he'd told
her about me...and, being a secretary and a VERY nice person, she sat down
and typed everything for him. We spent about 2 hours 'speaking' on the PC.
She was very tired and had to go to bed, so he sat down and carried on with
the typing. He sent me photographs of himself and his family, loads..showing
me how he'd changed over the years. He was so proud of his family he couldn't
stop sending me photos of them and it was lovely to see them. We must have
'talked' for at least another 3 or 4 hours! It was hardly worth him going
to bed as he had to be up at 6am to go to work.
We spoke every night for a few nights, we
exchanged addresses (he didn't have any trouble at all remembering my address...I
still live in the same flat..opposite his old house)..and we exchanged telephone
numbers and mobile numbers. The following day he called me on my mobile.
His voice was exactly the same as I had remembered it. We spent ages talking
on the phone. Four days after we had first 'spoken' on the computer I got
a text message on my mobile from him. He said that he was outside his old
house! He had two motorbikes and he'd ridden over from the South London on
one of them to where I lived in North London. I didn't know what to do. I
wanted to see him, but it wouldn't have been right to go out to see him and
he didn't want to just 'drop in' because of my husband. But we had to see
each other. I told him to leave the bike where it was and to walk round to
my bedroom window and I'd be standing there. He knew where the window was..he'd
stood outside it many, many times years ago. He came round and...I saw him
for the very first time in over 30 years! He seemed to still look like he
did when he was 11 1/2 ys old....when we'd first met. It was really odd.
He said that I looked the same as well. We stood there at my window, me inside
and him on the outside, just staring at each other. I opened the window and
we linked our little fingers together...and we both cried. It was such an
emotional time.
From then on we were in touch constantly.
He met my husband, I met his wife and children and his grandson. We all became
very good friends. Last year my husband and I went on holiday with him and
his wife. It was so lovely. His wife is so very, very nice, as is all his
family. The feelings were still there....and his wife knew about them..and
didn't mind! He wrote a profile on the Friends Reunited Website telling how
he'd always had such deep feelings for me but was too shy to tell me and
that he wished he had . He told me in that profile..not only for me to read,
but the whole world! And the nicest thing about it is, his wife read what
he had written before he posted it on the website and she gave her consent
to him posting it on the site for all to see. She is a VERY special lady.
Back to the future....
On Wednesday 7th July, just a week ago...I
received a phone call at 7.30am in the morning from 'his' son-in-law. He
had the most awful news in the world for me. He shattered my heart when he
told me that my sweet first love had died. It was such a shock, for everyone.
He'd not been ill! He's had some pains for a couple of weeks, which his doctor
had said were 'muscular', but they had got worse. I spoke to him in the
afternoon, just 10 hours before a massive heart attack had taken him away
from us all, he had told me the pains were bad..and that he was very frightened.
When I heard his son-in-law's voice at the other end of my phone that morning,
I knew instantly what hewas going to tell me.
For 3 years he'd been such a big part of
my life. He helped me through a few very tough times. My husband had spent
5 weeks in hospital 18 months ago, two of those weeks in Intensive Care with
me being told by the doctors that he probably wouldn't live. I wouldn't have
had the strength to get through that time if it hadn't been for 'him' and
also his lovely wife. They were both a tower of strength.
Last year his wife became ill. This past
year has been a nightmare for his whole family. Operation, chemo, the sickness
chemo brings, the pain, the tiredness and most of all the worry...worrying
about whether or not it would work. His one wish in life was for his wife
to be well again. He wished so many times that he could take on the illness
himself, have the chemo for her, take all the sickness and pain, anything
so she wouldn't have to suffer. He found it frustrating that he couldn't
do that for her. He'd get angry that he couldn't do that, and upset..I saw
the pain in his eyes because he couldn't do what he wanted to do...he had
to watch her go through it instead. He prayed so hard to God to let him take
on the suffering so she wouldn't have to suffer, just like he prayed so very
hard to God when his daughter's first baby had died in the womb just a few
days before she was due to be born. Although he knew the outcome, he still
prayed to God to take him and let the baby be born alive. He prayed to God
to take him and not his beautiful daughter when she was so ill afterwards.
He didn't want to be taken, of course, but he would rather God take him than
her. But it wasn't the time for either of them to go. Thank you dear God
for letting them both remain.
I hope this past year I was able to give
him back some of the strength he's given me over the last 3 years and that
it helped him to get through the past year a little easier...although it
has been very hard.
I am going to miss him so very much. It's
hard to believe that he is no longer with us. That I'll not see his face
again, hear him speak...or see an Instant Message or email from him when
I log onto AOL.
I went to the Chapel of Rest at the hospital
a couple of days after he'd died with his wife and family to say a last goodbye.
That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life.
It's not fair that somebody who was relatively
healthy could be taken so quickly without any warning...it comes as a HUGE
shock. They say the good die young..and it is true! He was only 51 years
old.
My husband will obviously be coming with
me to the funeral. It's not something I'm looking forward to..it's going
to be so very hard. In the Chapel of Rest, when his wife gave me some time
on my own with him I told him that I was going to be strong for him and that
I wouldn't crack up. I made a promise to him..and I shall keep it. We were
always very honest with each other, and had no secrets and would never have
thought of lying or breaking a promise to each other, so I will NOT break
that promise. I SHALL be strong for him. It's what he would have wanted.
Pebbles is going to miss her BamBam...but
she knows that she will see him again one day in that great cave in the sky..and
once more they will be reunited but instead of Friends Reunited..it will
be Heaven Reunites.
Goodbye my BamBam..I shall miss you! May
you rest in peace.
This page is dedicated to BamBam...better
known as
BRIAN ALEXANDER MONK
Goodbye my sweet...until we meet again one
day...
Love,
Pebbles
x x x x x x x
THANK YOU FRIENDS REUNITED FOR
STARTING UP YOUR WEBSITE
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