A tribute.

Memories are what life gives us to hang onto when things happen that we can't understand.

Memories. Of getting a new motorbike and loading all seven stone and no fear that was my friend Razz onto the back. Tearing up and down past Hylands Park in the middle of the night, blasting through the fog with her whooping and giggling and screaming "warp factor nine, Mr Sulu!" in my ear as she tried to get me to go faster. Rallies we went to together where we started drinking before we put the tent up, rallies where we played silly games and danced and snogged unsuitable men and laughed and laughed and laughed because we didn't have anything to worry about, not then. Endless nights in the pub, talking about nothing and everything and all the rest in between. A huge crowd of friends who didn't have good jobs, or money, or ambition and really didn't need any of those things because we were young and we cared about each other and all we needed to do was laugh and drink and sing and play and everything else took care of itself. Parties at our house where the Hippy juggled fire in the front garden, and you couldn't get down the stairs because of the queue for the bong. Sitting with her in the basement living room at Johnny Springate's house, smoking pot and shaking yoghurt pots full of lentils along with Fishbone on the stereo because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Wandering into town to spend our giros (a fiver on food, the rest divvied up for a week's beer money) and giggle at the people who were tied down by the nine to five. Celebrating birthdays with pub crawls, spending Christmas at Zanna's and eating so much that nobody could move for an hour afterwards. And the hours and hours and hours we all spent just being friends.

It couldn't last. It never can - life gets in the way. I moved away, got married, found a decent job, had a child...you know the rest. But the people who were my friends then are my friends now, and in my head they are always where I left them, waiting for the next milestone birthday or a wedding to bring us all together. I'm lucky to have such good friends, and to have shared good years with excellent people who loved me as much as I loved them.

Razz died yesterday. She was thirty-eight.

So I'll keep my memories, and I'll share them with my friends at her funeral, and they'll share theirs with me. And we'll cry, but we'll celebrate. We'll drink, and we'll laugh, and we'll sing, and we'll never, ever forget her. Because now, memories are all we have.

Sleep tight, Razz. I miss you.