Sunshine

When I wrote my ‘six months’ post after moving to the UK, nearly 10 years ago, I was excited about the future. I had hopes, dreams and aspirations.

For the first time in a very long time, I felt happy. This new chapter was exciting and full of possibilities. I felt at peace. Weirdly, the minute that plane landed, my heart was at peace, the tears dried up and I felt that I was exactly where I needed to be. To where God had led me.

One thing I didn’t consider was that, although life felt slightly surreal because wherever I looked made me
feel like I was inside a Harry Potter movie, this was, indeed, real life. And with real life, there’s joy and
happiness but there’s also heartbreak and pain. We get attached to people. We make friends and when you’re far away from home, those friends become family.

For me, one of those people was Sunetta. To most people she was known as Sunni but to me, she was Sunshine.

She had the most beautiful smile; a contagious laughter, the most gorgeous and perfect skin one can aspire to have, but most importantly, she was a great friend to me.

We met at work and hit it off immediately. Perhaps because we are both Cancer. We had a 10-year age difference and 10 days between our birthdays, it was like we were sisters. Regardless of age, when we were together, we were like two peas in a pod.

After work, we would both get the same bus home and that time together helped solidify our friendship.
From there, we started going to the pub after work instead of going home.

We shared a mutual passion for all things Channing Tatum, and it was with Sunshine that I saw Magic Mike for the first time. I remember how shocked she was to learn that I hadn’t seen Magic Mike so she made it her mission to get the DVD so we could watch it together. She sat next to me on the sofa looking directly at me, instead of the tv, because she wanted to see my genuine and immediate first reaction to the Pony situation. While my jaw was on the floor, she was laughing. From there on, we watched it together the second, and the third and the hundredth time together.

We would go crazy singing Pony in my living room, cheering and jumping on the sofa. On one occasion, my (male) housemate even asked, ‘Are you guys watching that rubbish again?’ which only made us sing louder.

Man, that memory is bittersweet. I want to laugh as I can perfectly visualise us in that situation, while also wanting to cry for knowing that it won’t happen again.

Sunshine would hijack my Facebook, which was hilarious, and she had the most beautiful voice. The girl
could sing! One night over the weekend, we decided to not be hermits and go to our local pub. The night
ended with us walking Kingswood’s High Street singing Waterfalls by TLC before sitting on a step of a shop
by my house. We talked for hours about boys, shared our life experiences and upbringings, dreams for the future.

Sunshine was from Kenya, I am Portuguese. On paper, we should be a million worlds away from one another but there we were with so much in common.

A few months after having this girl in my life pretty much every day, she moved away to Canterbury to
finish Uni. We discussed about me giving her ride there and help fill the car with her things, but I had only just bought my first car in the UK. It was a Peugeot 206 which wasn’t the most reliable and I wasn’t really used to driving on the other side of the road, so a family member drove her instead. No doubt, had we taken that journey together, it would’ve been one for the books. I can only imagine how epic it would’ve been.

I ended up changing jobs and as fate would have it, one of my colleagues was Sunshine’s brother, Norman.
It was through Norman that today, 31 March 2023, I found out that Sunshine has passed away three days
ago, on the 28 March.

Reading the announcement, made my hear sink. Surely not. Surely there is a grave mistake. Can someone
please double check if it’s really Sunshine? My Sunshine? Surely not! It can’t be.

I went back to Sunshine’s Facebook in the hopes of seeing a post from her saying that it was a mistake or a silly joke but I found nothing. I scrolled all the way back to posts from 2011. Seeing the posts from numerous people throughout the years on her timeline made me realise how loved she was. How many people’s lives she touched – mine included.

Sunshine’s daily presence in my life was short-lived but wow, did she imprint on me.

I will carry with me the guilt of thinking that I should’ve made more of an effort to see her if I wasn’t so wrapped up in day-to-day life. It will forever stay in my heart all the memories we shared and the absolute privilege of calling her a friend. I hope for the day when we can meet again.

Sleep well my beautiful Sunshine.