Sarah RIP

Yesterday my daughter Kerry put a message on my facebook wall, “today it is 8 years since Sarah’s death I can’t believe it has been that long. I still think about her a lot…” I was immediately transported back and overcome with terrible grief.

Sarah was one of Kerry’s best friends since she was 5 years old. They went to school together at St Joseph’s Convent in Reading Berks. England. We had lived in Reading for 9 years but had decided to move back to the US at the end of the school year.

Sarah had just had her 14th birthday she was a difficult child at times deep and impulsive. Her mother Jackie was a single Mom raising 4 kids since her husband had died of cancer. She was strict on Sarah who was her eldest child, she was grounded a lot it seemed to me for silly things that Kerry did all the time. It was none of my business so I said nothing.

Kerry was on a school trip to Spain. Sarah had not gone on the trip I’m not sure if it was because of the expense or that she was grounded for some silly thing she had done. It was a Saturday morning Sarah wanted to go in to Reading but Jackie wouldn’t allow her to go. She calmly ate breakfast went upstairs and wrote suicide notes to a few friends. Then she took all her mother’s pain meds that were in the bathroom. Her 7 year old sister found her some time later having a seizure and they called 911. She spent the next 5 days in ICU before she died.

The next few days are some of the saddest days of my life. When Kerry returned from Spain she was distraught. She felt terrible guilt for not being there for Sarah. She had threatened to commit suicide but no one believed her. Kerry was going to leave her and move to the States. Her suicide notes were full of pain and loneliness. I sat for hours on end with Jackie; strong Scottish women now overcome with the worst kind of pain and guilt. Reading those notes after the police allowed us to have them was pure torture.

Her funeral at the Catholic Church in Reading was so terribly sad. Her young siblings and mother sat up in front. Her white coffin and all her 14 year old classmates crying is a sight burned in my brain. There was not a dry eye in the packed out church.

The next few weeks were a blur, I worried constantly about how Kerry was feeling if she was forgiving herself for abandoning her friend. Her entire school was in shock and our last few weeks in England were just an endless sadness. I was glad when the time came to leave because it was like starting over for Kerry. She made new friends easily and settled in to life in the US.

Every year we remember 14 year old Sarah Gormon, gone but not forgotten. She would be 22 now. RIP lovely Sarah you could never have known how much you were loved or how you would break our hearts.

Dora Meulman