Too soon.

A woman called Stephanie Hackett died today.

That name probably means nothing to any of you.

Stephanie Hackett became a close friend of me and my family when we moved to Longsands, and had been ever since. She would babysit for me and my brother and sister, would take us to school when my parents were otherwise engaged, and would let us stay at her house after school on days the after-school club didn’t run and nobody could pick us up. She and her husband were invaluable help and counsel to my dad while he served in the Ribbleton parish, and they both supported him 100% while he was suffering from depression. She was a quiet, unassuming woman, who was kind to a fault, always thinking of others before herself, patient and ever-present, and made a mean lasagne.

She died of cancer of the ovaries at around 5pm today. She shouldn’t have died. She only found out she had the cancer a few weeks ago. At the most, she could only have been in her early sixties – which in my book goes down as “too early”. She was an amazing woman. I’m really, really going to miss her.