I knew Del would be my friend the day we first met. We were at a mutual friend’s 12th birthday party. Del and I got chatting. We clicked, though I didn’t realise we were embarking on a friendship that day which would continue for the rest of our lives.
Del and I began hanging around together. Our mutual love of similar music was a strong glue in those early days. There is truly nothing finer than belting out favourite tunes with a friend. It was the early 1970s, a fantastic time in the pop music world. We thought so, anyway... how disappointing in retrospect, that karaoke wasn’t introduced into our lives until many years later. Every week we’d pore over the song lyrics in Disco 45, practising until we knew them all by heart. Some fifty-plus years later, we can still perform a word (not necessarily tune) perfect version of Rocket Man and You’re So Vain. We had posters on our walls of our crushes. Del loved Donny, and she managed to get me a huge poster of David Cassidy because she knew I loved him.
We started dating our serious boyfriends when we were about sixteen. I started going out with David; then soon after, Del and David’s pal Graham got together. It was a convenient arrangement all round. We had the same routine every weekend. After our Saturday jobs, Del and I would get the 18.30 bus into town, a quick pub crawl around our five favourite pubs, then meet the lads in the town centre and get the last bus home with them. A quick snog at the front door and then in the house by 23.15. Innocent times. We had to get the 18.30 bus so that Del could go to Confession before we could go out on the razzle. Most weeks she got off lightly with an Our Father and a Hail Mary, but she must have really wound Father Gabriel up one time because he gave her a ‘decade of the Rosary’: one Our Father, ten Hail Marys and finish with a Glory Be. It seemed like an eternity! We argued that night and I told her if she needed to confess something so terrible in future, she should get the earlier bus. Wasting good drinking time!!
We’d gone through our teenage years in naivety. How appalled we were when Del’s younger sister had a pregnancy scare at only fifteen. She was much more advanced in that department than we were. At 18, I went on to Edinburgh Uni, then threw in the towel after a few months. I missed my life in our rural backwater, I missed Del, and I missed my boyfriend, David. Del was delighted when I went back home, and I got a job in the Post Office. I’d had to go on a six-week training course in Glasgow before starting work, and that is when my life changed. I met Stuart, from Dumbarton. David got dumped.
Meanwhile, Del and Graham went on to get married, and I married Stuart. Del was disappointed because our cozy foursome had fallen apart. For a while, I was persona non grata, but I was building my new life with my new husband. I tried hard to carry my friendship with Del and Graham forward into my new relationship. I was convinced that Graham and Stuart would hit it off. Two blue noses together. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I had married a bigot. Stuart could not get over the fact that my best friend was Catholic and couldn’t forgive Graham for marrying a ‘Tim’. Least said, soonest mended about that marriage... After less than two years, I decided I couldn’t live my life with someone so narrow-minded, and I moved on to pastures new. Del and I became close again, and I was delighted when she asked me to be Godmother to her son, Murray.
Over the next few years, Del and Graham remained great friends and loved my new husband, another David. We shared holidays, and they brought their boys to visit every year. Having them stay was like having family to stay, not visitors. Perfect guests. As we got older, we all experienced health challenges. Some more easily treated than others. I had more than my fair share.
In 2015, Del embarked on a series of medical tests. They were invasive and gruelling. She had an ECG, cancer screen, blood pressure tests, urinalysis, chest x-rays, ultrasounds, CT angiogram. And a rectal examination(!) In July of the following year, 2016, Del phoned me while David and I were on the Hogwart Express. I’d been expecting this call, and had been rehearsing what I would say and how I would say it. I knew Del would be devastated and, as her best friend, it was my job to help her keep things in perspective. All the tests she’d taken had come back with encouraging news. I was amazed, but Del soldiered on, and, as soon one test was complete, she stoically progressed to the next one. This was her final test, the one which might change our lives forever. The phone rang and I steeled myself.
'Hi. Del, how’re you doing?'
'No bad, really,' but she sounded down, dejected.
'Ok, Del, but we’ve anticipated this outcome, don’t be too downhearted.'
'I’m not,' she said. I thought I detected a shift in mood. 'In fact, I’m the very opposite.'
I was confused. I assumed she’d had a positive result; it was what I had anticipated. For Del to be able to donate her kidney to me, this final result had to be negative.
'It’s negative,' she whispered. I hardly heard her.
A negative crossmatch indicated her kidney was compatible with mine.
I heard screaming from her end of the phone.
'I’M A MATCH!'
'I’M A MATCH!'
'I’M A MATCH!'
My best friend of 45 years was about to donate her kidney to me.
The gift of life.