There are two people who define my transplant journey: one went through the process about six months ahead of me and the other three years after. I have outlived them both.
No one can say I’m still here when neither Emily or Kirstie are, but they will always live on in the hearts of the many, many people they touched.
I didn’t know Kirstie before her documentary was broadcast, but through the amazing CF community and the work we both did to raise awareness of cystic fibrosis and organ donation our paths began to cross and we became friends — or, I suppose, correspondents.
We would text each other when either of us was admitted to Harefield hospital and we’d share morale support when we needed it. We were by no means best buddies, but did what we could, when we could.
As with Emily (and frequently including Emily), we shared tales of transplant, recovery and the strange pressures of the “What Next?” of life after transplant. We had a rarified shared experience.
My abiding memory of Kirstie will be her bounding into my room in Harefield one day when I was waiting for my lift home after an admission. She had been in clinic and had popped up to the ward to spread some sunshine and she lit up my room in a second.
Despite feeling exhausted from a rough few days, I couldn’t help but smile and chat and have a giggle with her.
Kirstie had the same gift that Emily had: of being able to raise people to her own level of energy and enthusiasm for life. She was the dictionary definition of effervescent and she showered others in her pure and simple joie de vivre.
Not since Emily left us almost three years ago have I felt so lost at the death of a friend. I’ve not felt so keenly the delicacy of the balance I live in. I’ve not thought so much about when “my time” will be.
Kirstie will be missed by people she has inspired around the world. But she will be missed most by her devoted husband, Stu, and her ever-loving family who surrounded her to the end.
I’m incredibly blessed to have counted Emily and Kirstie as friends and to have had them in my life. I’m blessed to have seen the joy they brought to others and how much they revelled in doing it.
Alfred Lord Tennyson once said, “I am part of all that I have met.” If I can be one tenth of the people Emily and Kirstie were, I know I’ll have made my donor proud.