I’ve always wanted to tell the world about Sharon. I was never sure how to, and I am not sure what I have written will do her justice. I just want everyone to know how special she was and how she didn’t deserve the ending she had. I want everyone to know that whoever they come into contact with is someone’s daughter, son, sister, brother, mother or father and they deserve to be treated like the special human that they are regardless of the choices they make in their lives or how they choose to live. We all make mistakes in our lives, it shouldn’t define us.
If there is someone special in your life who is struggling, try your best to help them, even if that means finding someone else who can and you stand back.
So, here it is..our story, the story of siblings making their way in the world. I have probably missed out huge chunks, but I hope I have done the memory of the real Sharon justice.
I like to think we had a very special bond, perhaps because of the way we started life together. There was something between us that nobody else could really understand. We had been through the same things, side by side. Only she really knew how I felt, and only I really knew how she felt.
Neither of us coped well with the feeling that our parents didn’t want us, or at least that was how it felt to us back then. Sharon wore that hurt much more openly than I did. I think I internalised it, whereas she carried it on the outside. She leant on me for strength, even though she was twelve months older than me.
When we were very young, she was a good sister. She had loads of energy. She was outgoing, very pretty, and seemed to be everybody’s friend.
She was particularly useful to me because I was excruciatingly shy. Sharon would make all the friends and I would simply share them.
She needed attention and was always keen to impress; boys, adults, pretty much anyone who would watch. Because of that, she was often in trouble. She pushed boundaries. Life seemed exciting to Sharon, and she wanted to try everything.
We had a good relationship through our pre-teen years, but the teenage years brought tension between us. We became a bit fighty. She knew exactly how to pull my strings, and I would hit back. We were still close, but we no longer lived in each other’s pockets like we had when we were little.
Sharon brought a lot of tension into the house because she was always in trouble with somebody. She liked a bit of drama. Everyone seemed to like her, and when they didn’t, she would probably have said it was because they were jealous.
She was cheeky. She was fearless. She was full of life.
When we started work, she didn’t want me around when she was with her friends.
How embarrassing.
So, during our late teens, we didn’t spend as much time together. But when we were at home, she always made sure I knew she loved me.
It was only when we reached our very early twenties that we really became friends.
She had grown up. She was working and starting to have serious boyfriends.
She trained as a hairdresser, and I remember how hard she worked at college and during her training. Eventually, she landed the job she really wanted. She made good friends there, worked incredibly hard and was really good at what she did.
Unfortunately, the salon had to make cuts, and her job was one of the ones that went.
I think that hurt her more deeply than I realised at the time.
Perhaps because of the way we had started life, being the one they chose to let go felt like another rejection. Another reminder that she wasn’t good enough. She never really made peace with it. She had a few other hairdressing jobs, but never really settled anywhere. Then she made different friends. She started clubbing.
This was when things really began to change.
I remember thinking how cool she was. She became even trendier and sexier, and she was out there living it large.
Meanwhile, I was still at home trying to be the good girl. I behaved because Sharon was always in trouble and causing grief for our parents, our grandparents.
Sharon was always fun to be around because she was so confident and had so much energy. I would occasionally hang out at her flat and listen to all the exciting things they got up to.
She lived with some interesting people. They were so different from the people we had grown up around. I knew she was taking recreational drugs, amphetamines and ecstasy but I’m sure she kept a lot of it from me.
Then came the day I found out she was taking heroin.
I wasn’t sure what to do with that information.
I’m not even sure I understood the enormity of it.
It was Christmas. Sharon was visiting with a new boyfriend. I went upstairs to the bathroom and heard them in the spare bedroom. I went in to see what they were doing, which was something only a younger sibling could probably get away with. They were standing together in the room, looking sheepish. And then she told me. “Don’t tell anyone. We’re taking heroin.”
Nothing was the same after that day.
I never told anyone.
Sometimes I wonder if I should have.
I don’t know whether it would have made any difference.
The truth is, I didn’t feel as though there was anything I could do anyway. Things got worse. Before long, Sharon was coming to my workplace asking for money. It happened regularly. I remember one particular day when I went to her house with shopping and money. They weren’t there when I knocked, which was strange because they had agreed to meet me there. So I waited in my car.
Eventually, I saw them come home and followed them into the house. It was a large shared property and they lived on the ground floor. We were walking towards the front door when Sharon suddenly said, “That’s not right.”
And then all hell broke loose.
Noise. Shouting. People charging out of the flat. Sharon screaming.
There were police everywhere.
We were herded into the flat and searched, one by one, in the bathroom. Sharon’s boyfriend was taken away to the police station. She was crying and kept saying,
“Just leave Sam. She isn’t anything to do with this. She doesn’t know anything.”
She was terrified.
I often think about how she lived like that. She must have been so nervous all the time. It must have been a nightmare.
At that point, I was only just starting out on my own. I was flat-sharing with a friend and didn’t have much money myself. I remember Sharon coming to me one day and I told her: “If you take my last £20, I don’t want to see you again.”
It was a test.
I thought, surely she wouldn’t put me under that kind of pressure just to get a fix?
She looked at me and told me it was okay for me. I could just go home. Mum and Dad would help me. And she was right. They would have helped her too. But she wanted the drugs.
So she took my last £20.
And I didn’t see her again.
I don’t remember how long it was before I saw her next. It felt like a lifetime.
One evening, I was at a friend’s house when I passed Sharon and her boyfriend in the street. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t even known where she was living. She was in such a state. Her clothes barely fitted her. Her face was gaunt and she was tiny.
The curly blonde hair was gone.
The sparkly eyes were gone.
Even the pep in her step had disappeared.
But she was still my sister. I gave her a hug and we promised to keep in touch.
I went straight to the shop, bought a bag of shopping and took it to the place she told me she was living. It was a mess. Stuff everywhere. Dirty clothes. A mattress on the floor.
They were living in one room.
I remember feeling so low afterwards. I kept worrying about how I could help her.
She asked me if I could keep her locked in a room at my flat while she came off the drugs. But I couldn’t. At the time, I shared a flat with a friend. I couldn’t do it.
I felt terrible that I couldn’t help her. Even now, I sometimes think there must have been something I could have done. I tell myself I chose the easy option. That decision haunted me for a very long time.
Then I had the worst day of my entire life, one that would stay with me forever. When I recount it now, over 20 years later, I still cry.
I was at work.
We had a really fun office and, strangely, that particular day felt even more fun than usual. My mood was almost elated. It made no sense. After everything that had been happening, why did I feel so happy? I worked for the NHS at the time, in Public Health “ironically” and I was one of the team secretaries. We worked in a big, long office overlooking the street. That afternoon, I remember seeing a police car outside.
We joked about who was in trouble. I laughed and said I was going to be nosey and go downstairs to reception to find out what was going on.
I walked down the corridor.
At the far end, I saw my boss.
She was standing there, facing me.
Her face was sombre.
And suddenly I thought, Oh shit. She’s coming to get me. But it wasn’t the feeling of being in trouble. It was dread. An absolute, overwhelming sense of dread.
I knew, although I had no idea how I knew, that they were coming for me because something terrible had happened. My boss ushered me towards her and led me into a little room. There were two police officers inside. They had the same worried expressions on their faces. I don’t remember the exact conversation. But I remember the words.
They had found Sharon.
Her boyfriend had identified her.
She had died from multiple injuries after being knocked down on one of the most notoriously dangerous roads in the area.
The story was that she had been travelling by train to Birmingham to score drugs.
She panicked, thinking she had missed her stop. She got off the train and went into a local shop to ask where she could use the phone. They told her it was across the road.
Unfortunately, instead of crossing the small road opposite the shop, she tried to cross one of the busiest dual carriageways. She was hit by a car and then into the path of a HGV. They told me she wouldn’t have suffered. It would have been instant. She had no identification on her.
It was only when her boyfriend reported her missing that the police were able to put the pieces together.
He couldn’t remember where her parents lived.
But he remembered where I worked.
And that was how they found me.
The police then gave me a choice. They could take me home to tell our parents.
Or I could do it myself. I told them I would. And I did.
Looking back now, I understand something I didn’t understand then. I know why I was so happy that day. I really believe Sharon and I were linked. At the moment she died, something in me was released. She was free. Free from the pain, the anguish and the life she had somehow ended up living.
She was finally at peace.
I am sorry I didn’t help her. I am sorry that nobody helped her. I am sorry that such a special soul had such a difficult life from the very beginning. She deserved better. She deserved the chance to be happy.
And I hope, somehow, that her story became a lesson to others.
Because Sharon deserves to be remembered. She is missed every day. I still wish she was here.
My daughter reminds me of her all the time and I wish more than anything that Sharon could have met her. I think they would have been the very best of friends. Sharon would have been so happy to know that I ended up with a gorgeous family of my own. That was something she always wanted for me.
And for herself.
I remember the week she died. She was excited. She was waiting for a place at rehab. She and her partner had talked about kicking the habit and making a little family of their own.
Perhaps she might have found some peace in her life after all. For the first time in a long time, perhaps she could see a way out. Perhaps she was finally beginning to believe that her life could be different. Perhaps she was finally going to get her chance.
But she didn’t.
And so I choose to remember more than the way she died.
I remember the little girl who made all my friends for me.
The girl who was full of mischief.
The young woman who loved being noticed.
The hairdresser who worked so hard.
The sister who, despite everything, always made sure I knew she loved me.
I remember the curly blonde hair.
The sparkly eyes.
The pep in her step.
Before the drugs took those things away. Because that was Sharon too. And she deserves to be remembered. Not for the way she died. But for the way she lived.
She was my sister.
And I will always miss her.
By
