Hey, Mr Big! - scenes from a short but busy life (1)
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"For me, this book is not written down at all, but spoken aloud. If it helps, you may like to think of it as a conversation between Jamie and myself, with you - the reader - listening in. Over my shoulder perhaps. " |
"Jamie died on a single day in July 2003. But for the previous eleven years he was a boy who lived and who, in his own, childlike way, touched the lives of countless other people." | Photo: by "Uncle" Colin | " Yes, inevitably there is sadness and loss here. But if you choose to read on, I hope you will come to agree with me, that a short life does not necessarily have to mean a life that was lived in vain." |
"... you'd decided you would have to start writing a diary
of all the things you'd been up to.
It was the end of the first week of the holidays and you'd already been
to so many different places, and done so many different things,
that you were worried you might not remember it all ..."
"We found Margaret the school dinner lady already waiting at the bus shelter.
... we chatted with her about the busy week you'd been having." | Varnishing in the playhouse | "You explained to Margaret about the bird table you'd made for the garden. And how you'd left the tin of varnish out in the playhouse, all ready to put the second coat on when you came back next week." |
"You sat on the left side of the bus, giving me one of your usual beamy smiles and a wave through the window as the driver pulled away. Then, as you swung out of the car park, there was the chance for one more final wave from the other side before you headed off up the road towards Inverness."
Andrew Dale: another BIG guy! Photo: courtesy of the Press & Journal, Aberdeen | "Andrew Dale was the man who went all on his own to try to rescue you. There's no question about it, he was a genuine hero. putting himself at risk for you, Jamie Man."
"... the least I could do was to make sure that his courage did not go unrewarded." |
"You got a bang on the head as you fell. The doctors assure me that you
must have died instantly. You wouldn't have felt a thing. I imagine that it must have been like all those many times when I turned off the light at bedtime.
Night, night, Jamie Man. Sleep well. See you in the morning."
Medal: hand-made by Alice Buttress | ðJï "Hold on to the smiles
Hold on to the fun
Hold on to the times of laughter" |
My smiley Gang Show man |
"It'd been an exhausting week with you. I really don't believe we
could've squeezed a single thing more into our time together - busy days
that brimmed to the top. Naturally there were loose ends. And leftovers to
be taken up once more the following week. But no unfinished business. You went away in sunshine and I know with absolute certainty that we parted
with a smile in both our hearts. That was the gift you left me."
| "I took the coins out of your piggy bank in the bedroom. They came to £3.88. And I paid that into the bank too when we opened the account this morning. It was what I thought you would have wanted ..." |
|
"The one who is lost is the one whose story is forgotten.
... those words of Jonas stayed with me. And your plans for a holiday diary too, Jamie Man. Could I make sure that your story would not be forgotten?
- I could certainly try."
"I do regret deeply the time and the manner of your death, my Wee Man.
But I will always rejoice in the kaleidoscope of the life
that you allowed me to share with you."
"Looking back now through your school work, there's no doubt who
was the hero of the moment in P3 and P4. Everything revolved around
Giggles Super Mouse. One time in P3, you were asked about the best dream you'd ever had. And you drew a picture of Giggles playing the piano!
On another worksheet that year, you wrote:
I like being myself ... because I have got a mouse."
Building the playhouse, 1996 | "There was always something wooden going on around you from your earliest days.
That final week you looked at logs in the shed and bits of wood in the loft and you dreamed aloud of things you might do with them one day." |
"This most special of summers, when you were preparing to jump
from being one of the big, grown-up P7 fish in Carr-Bridge Primary School,
to a wide-eyed, eager, little fish darting here, there and everywhere
in the magical new waters of S1 at Grantown Grammar School."
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