James
As she was up ‘stairs I heard a ‘thud’ and replied with a snappy remark. There was no response, no comeback to make me feel silly, no shoe flying down the stairs aimed at me. I went up to check on her. She was on the floor. I thought she was playing around at first, but Wallis wasn’t breathing. I then ran down the stairs to get her mum. The rest is too difficult to go through again, way too painful, but I will say this: I will not miss her because she hasn’t gone anywhere; she’s in my heart always. I’ve always known she had her illness, but I never thought about her dying, or what I might do if something like this did ever happen. Now, somehow, I have to face my life without my sister, with out my friend, without support when I’m down. Since Wallis passed I’ve asked myself, ‘what do I do now?’ over and again, and I really don’t know.
I wrote this article on Wednesday 12th August 2009. We had arranged to meet so I could show her around Muswell Hill. We were both east Londoners who loved north London, and we wanted to find out where Wallis’ hero, Michael McIntyre, lived. Writing this article is helping me, but I’d sooner be walking around with her. We lived very close. I could see her window from my room. We even learnt Morse code with flashlights for when we ran out of credit to phone or text. Now when I look out of my window I see a set of closed curtains, and the crack in the glass we made when we were mucking about in her room once. We both loved plants, we even had silly nicknames: I was Jasmine James and she was Watermelon Wallis. But my friend was called Wallis Blewitt. My sister was called Wallis Blewitt, and a large part of my heart is property of a girl called Wallis Blewitt.
For advice on this or any other issue see the list of local services in the directory on p27
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