Random tragic memory found in my old diary **Content Warning** Title edited by MNHQ

[cardiologist349275]

Sorry this isn't an AIBU but I didn't know where to put this. I was going through 20+ years of diaries and came across a story my mum told me before she died.

There was a little girl who went to school with my brother. She had a brain tumour. She was extremely unwell but still went to school every day, and one boy was always bullying her and pushing her over in the playground and she would cut her knees open all the time. The teacher was also a nasty bully (this was the 80s so she got away with it for years) and was very cruel to the girl because she had to wear trousers because she couldn't cope with a skirt, but she found the trouser buttons really hard to do up and the teacher would pick on her about it and not help her. She died on the day of the school play aged five.

My Mum was haunted by it and never forgot that little girl who she said was so, so sweet.

To add to the family's tragedy, their other daughter sadly suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had to live in sheltered accommodation. One day about ten years ago the mother went to visit her, not knowing the daughter was having an episode and had snuck a knife into the flat. She was stabbed to death.

Though I never knew any of these people, I think of them often. Their tragedy has been lost to time, but I think if I remember them then they won't just be....gone.

Does anyone else have any memories of other people that come back to them in a haunting way?

[Justheretoaskaquestion91]

@Hedgesfullofbirds

I don’t know why but there’s something about the suddenness of that death during a fun game, the unexpectedness of it, that really upsets me.

[trappedsincesundaymorn]

40 years ago my best friend got given a motorbike for his 16th birthday. He put on the "L"'s and took it out (this was before the days of compulsory bike training). It was raining slightly and his head was down so as not to get rain on his visor....he never saw the lorry that hit him. I remember being told of his death as if it were yesterday and I often wonder what sort of man he would have become, as a boy he was the kindest sweetest soul.

[ninnynonny]

@shortpoet. No, I was in an East Anglian village - H.

[weebarra]

My next door neighbour growing up joined the army and was killed in a car bomb by the IRA. He was only 19. There was a big age difference between him and his younger sister, she was the year below me at school.

[Justheretoaskaquestion91]

I had a best friend -11-14 who I lost touch with when I moved away. Moved back a few years later, chatted on SM media for a while and arranged to meet. I had to cancel as I was unwell and was too busy/lazy to rearrange straight away. A month after we were due to meet she killed herself. It haunts me and I think about it all the time and how it might have been if I had met her, if i could have helped her.

[CurryLover55]

A girl in my class in 5th year ( now Year 11) died from liver cancer aged 20 & I still think of her now & all that she missed out on in life.

[HipposHaveNipples]

When I was in year 3 a girl in the year above died suddenly from an asthma attack. I think that was the first time I realised that it wasn't just the elderly who die.

[Aprilx]

I have never forgotten a girl that went it my primary school. She was a year younger than me and she was called Elizabeth. She wasn’t one of the cliquey girls, she didn’t seem to have particular friends but she was liked. She was quite a tomboy and very lively. I didn’t really have any friends in primary and she was one of the few people that didn’t object to me being around and joining in games like hopscotch (this was the 70s).

Anyway I think after the summer holidays new year she didn’t come back. I heard she died, but I was only about seven and didn’t ask for any more information. I still don’t really know what happened to her, but I have never forgotten her. It would be about 44-45 years ago now.

[itsallgoneshitflavoured]

I went to an all girl's school. The boy's were educated on another campus across town. One winter morning the groundsman found a young lad aged 12 swinging from a tree next to the cricket pavilion. He was homesick as a boarder and being bullied horrendously for it.
Also, older but still impacted me greatly, when a lad I lived in shared accommodation with in Nottingham as a student was hit by a drunk driver and pinned against a wall where he died along with the girl he was walking home with. Still think about these people from time to time and how fragile and fleeting life can be.

[Hedgesfullofbirds]

At secondary school a boy, two years older than me, was hit on the head by a hockey ball, whilst playing in a home match against another school. He died that night in hospital from a brain haemmorhage. Still sticks in my mind 40 years later and I vividly recall his name, but won't mention it here

[HPFA]

My grandmother (back in 1910) won a scholarship to Manchester High School. She didn't make many friends - she came from a poor area, didn't even have the right uniform. But she said there was a nice girl - Lucy, a doctor's daughter. She died of diptheria.

Over a hundred years ago, but Lucy's existence is not totally forgotten.

[NoddingTulip]

2 children at my school one in year above me and the other bellow so they would have been around 6&8yrs old. 5geir parents were separated and one weekend when they were with their dad the 3 of them were found dead, locked in the car engine running and hose pipe through the window. I only knew the older one vaguely from choir practice, but I was deeply moved by it all but not understanding how or why, but thinking their dad was an awful horrid man.
I remember the remembrance assembly at school so much and the dress up day we had to raise money for a bench and tree in the playground to remember them.
I often think of the children and their poor mother. As I grew I was able to have a little sympathy for their father and the head space he must have been in to carry out something like that, but my heart will always go out to their mother and I only hope she has managed to find some sort of peace with the tragedy of loosing both her children.

[SelfHelpPlease]

There was a girl in my year at school, who was very sweet. We'd shared a room on a residential trip 6 months earlier. She was dragged under a bus in Highbury and Islington whilst we were on work experience. She was only 15. It was tragic, its stayed with me since and I always think of her on the anniversary of her passing and often wonder what she would be doing at this stage in her life. 💔

It put things into perspective for me at such a young age, knowing that we could be here one day but not the next. I couldn't get my head around that just 6 months earlier, we were having a great time and she was sharing her snacks with me.

[COL1N]

When I was about 16 my friends older brother died, it was my first experience with death & at a sensitive age it really impacted me. I always remember that my friend had been named after a character from a childrens book, on the request of their older brother. I now read that book to my daughter & always think of them x

[tillytoodles1]

My son's school friend died of cancer in his teens. He had two younger brothers and one stabbed the other to death in a stupid row. He went into wherever they place young offenders, and their poor mum lost all three sons in just over a year

[Ludoole]

My son had a best friend who died from a brain tumour aged 5. Telling him his friend had died was horrible. He was an incredibly clever, polite little lad and my old diaries said he would have changed the world. Such a waste of a charming, clever, beautiful soul.

[moonlight1705]

@elp30

I remember a boy who sat next to me in my class in year four (aged nine). He was always so sweet but very quiet.

I remember that he was absent from school one day and when I watched the television, I learned that my classmate's father was killed. The father was an abusive violent alcoholic who used to beat his wife and my classmate stabbed his father to death after his father beat his mother.

It's been 42 years since that happened and I've never forgotten my classmate and I am always deeply sad that no one knew what he and his mother went through at the hands of his father.

That's an utterly heartbreaking story, thatvpoor boy and what he went through to get to that stage.

[GoodnightGrandma]

My mum befriended a lady who moved into a house near to us. One of her daughters had leukaemia. When she died I was given a toy cot she had. I never played with it. It was the first death I knew of, and she was about 7 years old. I often think about it.

[Kanaloa]

@ninnynonny

There was a little girl at my primary school called Jenny who had both legs in calipers. I have no idea what it was she had but always wondered. She was such a jolly girl - never in my friendship group but just really lovely.
Ona nasty note, I was horribly bullied because I had a visible difference and I will never ever forget or forgive a girl called Verity who got a gang together and encircled me chanting my disability out loud. It still affects me 45 years later.

So they all stood round you shouting out what your disability was? How disgusting

I do seem to remember playgrounds being largely unsupervised when I was younger, compared to my kids playground which has playtime supervisors. They’ve always been fantastic especially with my son who is autistic. They’ve supported him to join in games etc. I couldn’t imagine something like this happening although I imagine it still does! People can be just so awful.

[Nsky]

I recall at my secondary school in the country, someone announcing a boy had been killed , knocked of his bike doing a paper round, tragic

[Starcaller]

Andrew, a boy in our secondary school. Hung himself during Easter holidays. A popular, smart boy, plenty of friends. It still seems so unbelievable 20 years on.

[elp30]

I remember a boy who sat next to me in my class in year four (aged nine). He was always so sweet but very quiet.

I remember that he was absent from school one day and when I watched the television, I learned that my classmate's father was killed. The father was an abusive violent alcoholic who used to beat his wife and my classmate stabbed his father to death after his father beat his mother.

It's been 42 years since that happened and I've never forgotten my classmate and I am always deeply sad that no one knew what he and his mother went through at the hands of his father.

[CPL593H]

I can't remember most of the names of my junior school friends (50+ years ago) but I have never forgotten one boy. He had bright blond hair, was abnormally skinny and wore clothes that were TBH rags, frankly. It was the classic (horrid) situation, no one would sit next to him as he smelled so bad. He had a terrible stutter and would get very frustrated and angry at times, thus got slippered more than most. He was generally so anxious to please, though and any sign of kindness or friendship was pounced on and he would light up. When we changed for PE the bruising on his back and arms was awful.

Looking back, there was clearly an absolutely Dickensian level of abuse and neglect going on and there is not a social services department in the country, however poor, that wouldn't have been out like a shot today. As far as I could see, nothing at all was done, his situation certainly remained the same all the time we were there. He haunts me a bit and I hope with all my heart that he went on to have a great life. I have my doubts, sadly.

I'm sorry for what you went through, Paul.

[PissedOffNeighbour22]

My friend died when she was around 9 or 10. She stepped into the road as a car was coming and as she tried to get back to the pavement she slipped and banged her head on the kerb.
We didn't go to the same school so weren't close friends as I knew her through her family members, but it affected me a lot. I remember going to her memorial service and it was horrible to sit through.

I still think of her often.

[Whosthebestbabainalltheworld]

A neighbouring boy called Des Murphy. He was more a kid I knew than a friend. He joined the French foreign legion when he was 17 or 18 and was killed shortly afterwards. I often think of him and how sad his parents must have been.