Dear Kate,

IT has been over three years since our friendship, which we had over 30 years, came to an end, neither of us knowing why we let this happen.

What friends we were. Your quick, witty comments made me laugh so much. Our daily phone conversations were always full of excitement, planning where we would go and what we would do next.

I have so many memories of you that I recall so often, especially one when you were hit with a bad tummy bug and I went to help you look after your young children. I prepared you the biggest fryup breakfast you ever saw, imagine I didn’t have the cop on to know that this was the last thing you wanted.

We laughed over this many times; you said you could smell the aroma of it coming up the stairs and you rushed to the bathroom.

Then what about your regular Friday night visits to my home — my favourite night — to watch The Late Late with Gay Byrne. My television always seemed to go on the blink when it would start and you, knowing how I enjoyed this programme, used to hold a little TV aerial steadily, so that I could see it. We always tried to get tickets for the show but it never happened.

The list of memories we share is endless. You always said I should write a book. If I ever do that, I will call it our book, because you are a very big part of it.

Now not only me, but my family, miss these special years — your children, my children, the birthday parties and days out in the summertime, the car packed with picnic food and off we would go between us, eight children in tow.

Now we are both at a different stage in our lives, both of our own children reared, we have our grandchildren now to keep us busy. When mine are old enough to understand, I will tell them all about my special friend Kate.

I end by saying: “It is better to have had your friendship and lost it than never to have had it at all.”

Deirdre, Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan