Lucy

Another friend of mine died today. That's three in three months.

This time it was the wonderful Lucy Glennon.

I can't remember the first time I met her online; you repeatedly cross the paths of other Tweeters, writers, activists, and friends of friends until you get to know that person. But I do remember the first time I met her in real life. It was at the Hardest Hit march in London.

The gathering point for the start of the march was on the Embankment. I was heading east to west to meet my friends Mandy and Lou, and I saw Lucy go past heading south to north about 75 yards in front of me. I recognised her immediately from photos I'd seen of her online. I yelled out "Lucy!" in my sort-of female Brian Blessed boomy voice that can be heard for about half a mile. Her and the 2 people she was with all heard me and stopped, despite all the background noise. We only chatted for a few seconds because I was looking for Mandy and Lou, and she was heading towards the others from debra. I think the next time I saw her was at another Hardest Hit event, this time a static rally outside City Hall. The static nature meant neither of us were dashing around finding other people so we could sit and chat.

Considering we only lived about half a mile apart, we really didn't see each other as much as we should have. When I first met her she was living in an inaccessible block of flats, but eventually rent rises and benefit cuts meant she was forced to turn to the local council to be rehoused into a council flat. This also meant she got allocated a wheelchair accessible flat. She moved to the big new development in Kings Cross, into one of the first blocks of flats to be opened.

Every time I moaned about my flat being not accessible enough she would tell me that I should ask the council to be rehoused because they were building more accessible properties in the development she lived in, and it'd be so cool if we were neighbours. And it would have been cool to have a really great friend in the block of flats next door, but it wasn't to be. As nice as it would be to live in a better flat, moving is so crushing both mentally and physically that I just couldn't face it.

Lucy would often post information about EB on Twitter and Facebook (not to mention photos of her hanging out with people like Sean Bean and Damien Lewis at EB fundraising events) so I knew that life expectancy for people with it isn't great. And every time I read such things I knew that Lucy had reached an age where it was a worry as to how much time we had left with her. So I'd try to immediately put it out of my mind because I didn't want to think about a world without Lucy in it.

I considered sending a text to Lucy's phone, figuring her possessions are now in the hands of her family, to send them my condolences. But concluded that would be weird so didn't do it. I've only met her dad once and not any other members of her family.

I shall miss her greatly. She was a wonderful woman with a fantastic sense of humour. Every time I hear any mention of Game of Thrones and shall think of her and her adoration of the show.