What Every Man And Woman Needs

Please note: this story contains content that some readers may find upsetting

What every man and woman needs

Is a friend

Someone who knows them at their best

And at their worst

And loves them

Just the same

We had that saying on the wall in our house when my brother and I were growing up.

It's now 3 September 2021 and I am standing at the lectern at the Linn Crematorium in Glasgow about to give the eulogy at my brother's funeral.

As I prepare to give my speech, I look up. Covid regulations are still in place and the only three people I could invite are standing outside the open door. It's a beautiful, warm, sunny day.

I nod to Craig who looks so smart in his black suit and he nods back and puts his hand over his heart, keeping it there throughout. I am instantly struck by the symbolism of this. Craig standing strong and solid and reliable like the Finnieston Crane at Glasgow's Clydeside. Eleanor and Catriona like the cranes my brother and I saw only a few months earlier when he drove me back from hospital. He looked over the river to see all the cranes with their heads bowed, as if in sorrow for all the sadness of the pandemic and pointed them out to me. Now my friends with their heads similarly bowed.

The last book I bought him was In The Shadow of the Crane. He loved it so much he asked for it to be brought into hospital so he could finish it. His best pal Davie said he would like to read it too. The last message my brother sent me an hour before he died was about Davie who had just had a transplant. Later, I bought another copy of the book and sent it to him, keeping my brother's promise.

Initially, in all the shock and trauma of my brother's death I was unsure if I wanted my friends there. They didn't know him, though Eleanor had done a remarkable thing for him and me by agreeing to take up my emergency key to rescue him a few weeks earlier and get him to hospital.

I was used to seeing these friends in happy times. Eleanor, Catriona and I met when I joined the local rock and pop chorus and when Catriona and I left and Eleanor stayed on, we all kept in touch and supported one another, comforting in difficult times and celebrating in good times. Craig, the young man I first met as a 20 year old student who won my storytelling prize, now a married man, a father and a university lecturer. I did not want to impose my sadness on them but they wanted to 'rally round' as Catriona said. They had all brought flowers and shopping in the days following his sudden death.

Seeing them there that day turned out to be my lifeline because of other things that happened.

Once I asked my 92 year old mum, who was bedridden and had dementia whom I looked after for many years 'do you know who I am?' She replied 'you're my Dorothy, my best pal.'

I've kept what turned out to be the last birthday card my brother gave me because I was so surprised and delighted by the words. He was a man who did not find it easy to express his feelings but always bought sentimental birthday cards. Our mum was the same. I was so blown away. It was so unexpected. So prophetic as it turned out. Like many brothers and sisters we had our disagreements but this level of emotion was something I never thought I would receive from him.

It's still on my desk. 'To a Beautiful Sister. You're the kind of sister who livens things up, who makes any time much more fun. The kind who always does more than her share whenever things need to get done. The kind of sister who's open and honest, with care and support to the end. You're the kind of sister I'm lucky to have – the kind I'd choose as a friend. Happy Birthday. With Love. Your brother , John x'

I referred to that birthday in my speech and I will never forget his face at my door that day. I only had a thirty per cent chance of getting to that birthday. I thanked him for the cupcakes he always made for me to share with my friends, gave him the biggest smile and said 'I made it!'. He smiled and nodded and said 'yes'. We both knew what that meant.

I opened my jacket to show him my Wonder Woman t-shirt my friend Catriona had bought me a few years earlier. Oh, how he laughed.

I've just remembered another time I saw him so happy. The photo is on my desk still of the day he took 10 year old Lucy and I to the People's Palace in Glasgow and we put our heads through the seaside postcard scene and I was the donkey and I put on a suitable face and donkey grin. How he laughed. He didn't know I had just been diagnosed with cancer. I mentioned that day in my speech and looked at 16 year old Lucy, too young to be dressed in black and who, usually full of life, sat motionless and looking lost.

Nearly four years on now. In his birthday memoriam in the local paper this year I said 'Treasured memories of my big brother and best pal'.

When our dad died in 1990, I met by chance a friend I had been a student alongside many years before, who was then a minister and told him I was struggling with my grief and that I felt I had only just been getting to know my dad in his retirement – just like my brother in his – and I said this too in my speech. My old friend replied 'you were pals. The grief is so hard because the love was so very strong'.

What every man and woman needs. Indeed.

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