Epilogue
SEVERAL YEARS LATER
Dear Lexie,
It’s a few years since I’ve written to you. So much has happened and I need to tell you about it. I think you’d be proud.
I’ve discovered an animal shelter never really starts.
You don’t open the gates and wait for something to happen.
As soon as a whisper of what we’re doing gets out, it becomes, an invisible message borne across the ether, reaching into the lives of those in need of us. But I think you’ve always known that.
One morning, I open the back door of what used to be Mary’s house to find a dog tied to the gate, with a bowl and a note.
He was my mother’s. She died last week. Please can you look after him.
Whoever abandoned him hasn’t thought to tell us his name, so we christen him Primo, because he’s our first. He’s a grey, wire-haired crossbreed with anxious eyes, who is humble and quiet and just wants love.
Cats follow – from manky old ones to orphaned kittens and everything in between.
Ex-egg-farm hens. My window into your world widens when orphaned piglets are brought to us, and I think of your piglets born in a slaughterhouse.
But even without them, each and every day, I think of you, Lexie.
To mark our official opening, we organise a party in honour of you.
The day before, I read through all the letters I’ve written to you.
Letters that have helped me heal. Remember your words.
When our guests gather, silence falls as I tell them what you achieved in your life.
Then Joe unveils the plaque we’ve nailed to the gate that says quite simply, Lexie’s Place. Then underneath: A legacy of kindness.
* * *
After scaling back our flower business, Lucy and I juggle weddings with running the shelter together.
Ollie dedicates every spare minute he has to helping, Jenna manages our accounts while looking after Max, baby number two.
Harrie is our dearest, most loving animal-cuddler, while Joe’s new practice rapidly takes off.
And it isn’t just animals who arrive in their droves.
Volunteers turn up, almost always when we need them most.
Having sold the cottage I bought, Petals carries on in part of the stables, while we convert the rest into Joe’s new vet practice and housing some of our homeless creatures.
It seems incredible to me how seamlessly all of this has taken shape; how so many lives have become enmeshed, the direction we’re taking. How none of it would have come about without you, Lexie.
After two years together, Joe proposes. We get married in the church where your funeral was held, then have a marquee reception in the garden – just a small one that Lucy and I decorate with flowers. Life exactly as it is, is as good as it gets.
I will always regret that you are not here to share this with us; it has only come to be because of you. But the irony is that if you were here, it might have worked out differently. The ripple effect of your presence; it’s another of those things I’ll never know.
There are still moments that catch me. One afternoon, while I’m walking Primo, I come to a lake.
I stop to gaze at the surface, and it’s as though I can see your life in millions of little freezeframes – from the newborn baby to your first steps.
You and Ollie together. You, scattering handfuls of cherry blossom petals.
The intensity of your pale-blue eyes. Your gap-toothed smile.
All the things you did that made me laugh, that made my heart burst with love.
Your teenage years. The passionate woman you became.
Your pain – pain I could do nothing about.
There are blank spaces for days that never came to be.
So many images, Lexie. Of your life, in every shade of light and darkness, each with its own beauty. Each one of them part of your story.
My grief still exists. It always will. It’s a part of who I am, now; is just another form of my love for you.
But – when I think back to your life and where it all began – my pain gradually lessens and as its mists lift; the world reveals itself again.
Only this time, everything is more. Colours are brighter, birdsong more vibrant.
Sunsets achingly beautiful, this sea-change I feel ever more mysterious.
Maybe that’s what life is all about. A re-learning: how to feel these transient, split-second moments, to appreciate what too often is passed over in a hurry or taken for granted.
You’ve got it, Mum! This world is awesome when you stop to properly look at it.
But I’m not surprised to hear your voice; these are all things you knew, Lexie.
I know that healing is taking place when I go to Ollie’s one night.
‘I often wonder if Lexie’s out there,’ he says. He’s standing at the end of his garden, his telescope angled towards the stars. ‘We don’t talk about her enough, do we?’ Ollie knows your loss hurts me, and he tries to protect me.
‘We should. I want to,’ I say softly.
‘I do, too,’ he says. ‘I miss her, Mum.’ Ollie’s voice is husky. ‘I was so proud of her.’
‘Me, too.’ For a moment, I don’t trust myself to speak. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever make sense of why it had to happen.’ I gaze at the sky; wonder if darkness is beautiful, maybe pain is too, because it means you loved.
Ollie’s silent. ‘I don’t know about you, but I learned so much from her – about not turning my back on suffering. And about kindness.’
And there it is, in a nutshell; the essence of you. Someone who saw others; who endeavoured to be kind. Who was an example to me, to Ollie, to his family after him. This is your legacy, Lexie. It will stay with us; will endure.
* * *
And so the years pass; the circle of life continues, the many animals who need us coming and going. Some we can’t help, others stay for the rest of their days; our philosophy with all we do, your philosophy. One of kindness.
One afternoon we’re open to visitors, a family turns up. The husband is tall and kind, the wife is heavily pregnant. They have a daughter with them – a little girl of about four or five, with windswept hair who, from the back, looks just like you.
I watch her gaze at the animals, reaching a hand out to one of the piglets, giggling when it comes over and snuffles at her.
I go over to her. ‘Would you like to give him this?’ I hold out a carrot.
As she turns and our eyes meet, it’s like the breath is knocked out of me. You see, I’d swear, gazing back at me, they’re your piercing, pale-blue, sparkling eyes.
‘Thank you.’ Something flickers across her face as she stares at me. Then she takes the carrot and holds it out to the piglet as her father comes hurrying over.
‘Come on, Lexie.’ Swinging her into the air, she giggles.
Lexie? I stand there, rooted to the spot. Is it you? Have you come back?
Her laughter is a musical sound, joyous, lyrical. Is it fantastical to imagine you’ve found your way back here? Your way of letting me know you’re happy? But when there are more mysteries to this life than we’ll ever find the answers for, I’ve no way of knowing.
I stand there watching the family walk away, my heart twisting as the little girl briefly glances back over her shoulder at me.
And however strange it might seem, suddenly I know with utmost certainty that this is where I am meant to be. How proud you are, not just of me, but of all of us.
* * *
Dear Lexie,
I could tell you a story, my beautiful child,
Of everything I wanted for you.
But you were a soul who felt too deeply the cares of the world.
You couldn’t turn away from what others wouldn’t see.
And it was never for me to decide what the story of your life would be.
It was always for you.