I've spoken about death before. When my Grandad died, I wrote a blog about it. In my OCD-mind I have a list of everything, including the funerals which I have been to. It seems insensitive to write it up, but in my head it clicks away, each time something notable happens, it clicks into a list in my mind, and last week I attended a memorial for someone. It was the sixth funeral / memorial service I have attended, and the worst. By far.
It was in the news that hostages in an Algerian oil rig were killed when the Algerian forces (police, maybe?) decided to raid the place, despite the threats to kill the 27-odd people they had held captive. Six of these hostages were British. One of them was called Sebastian John. He was only 26 when he was murdered for absolutely no reason. He was only 26, but a cathedral was filled last Wednesday as we remembered his life.
He went to school with my brother. They were best friends from age 11, caught the bus together, played rugby and golf and other sports together, and he spent a lot of time with our family in those first three or four years. Then they moved up to Happisburgh, so we didn't see him at home any more, but James still saw him at school, played rugby, and were good friends through the whole of their school careers. He came on a holiday with us when I was about 8 or 9, so they would have been 12 or 13. We went to Gran Canaria, and went on a catamaran out to sea, and it had a big floating trampoline which we had great fun on. We would hang out after dinner, me James and Seb, walking around the resorts, playing mini-golf at midnight. I used to really fancy him, because he was such a nice guy, and was really nice to me, and on one of the last nights of that holiday we went to a different resort for dinner and a party, they had a bad disco, and James refused to dance, so me and Seb were dancing to the Mel C song 'Northern Star'.
Seb finished school with excellent grades, went to Loughborough to study Civil Engineering, and achieved amazing things. He met his wife at university. He was offered a job as President's assistant for the ICE, which only 6 people in the UK have the privilege of being at one time. He got a first, got a job with BP, and was shipped out to Algeria. He had a wife and a nine-month-old son called Ralf. He had his life at his feet, and it was ripped away from him. His wife's speech, about the man she loved, her soul mate, left a lump in everyone's throats, a tear in the eye, and a sadness so deep in the soul. His best friend Tom made a speech, and all his fellow classmates, who hadn't stood together in that cathedral for nine years, stood proudly together and sang their old school hymn, Jerusalem, just like they used to when standing shoulder to shoulder with Seb. The memorial was to celebrate his life, but the day was tainted with an air of sadness; they were all reuniting in their school after less than a decade for the wrong reasons. They were burying and saying their condolences to friends about a man who they all remembered so fondly, so lovingly, and it was such a shame to have lost such a happy, kind and caring person.
In memory of Seb John: may the things you left behind gives us power and grace in the next 26 years, building towards the brighter, better future you dreamed of. May Ralf be blessed with at least half of the kindness and beauty which you emitted every day. May Nikola remember the love, and go on with her on life, happy in the knowledge that she knew of a love so strong and incredible.
May your soul be at peace, and may we all take a moment in our lives, years later, to feel the way in which you impacted each life you touched for the better. You were the first Boys School crush I ever had, and it seems strange to think back to a time I barely remember, to wonder if you'd remember it too. I will not forget your face; I will not forget the lessons I have been taught through your life and your death. I will not forget.