There was a dark dark. ...........

I was reading the start of natassjas creative writing story and I got talking with her about stories her and kayleigh told to each other. I know every night before bed they would chat and make up stories and the one Natassja most remembered was one that was kind of silly:


In a dark dark world there was a dark dark forest. In this dark dark forest there was a dark dark tree and next to the tree there was a dark dark path. If you followed the dark dark path you came to a dark dark house. This dark dark house has a dark dark door. If you open this dark dark door you enter a dark dark room. Across this dark dark room is a dark dark staircase. If you go up the dark dark staircase there is another dark dark door. Open the dark dark door and go into the dark dark bedroom. On the floor of this dark dark bedroom is a dark dark cupboard. Inside the dark dark cupboard is a dark dark box...... And inside the dark dark box is ............. A rainbow scarf! ( or something else that completely doesn't go)

I love learning new things about Kayleigh I didn't know before. Although I saw her everyday and knew what she was like I am still finding things out about her that make me realize that she was even more then what I knew her to be.

Weight

At birth Kayleigh weighed 3.170 kgs, or 6 pound 13 3/4 oz ( close enough to 7 pounds!) and measured 52cm (she was a looooooong baby). As a baby her weight on the baby scale started off a little higher than the average and then flatten out to always be in between the average and the 25% percentile. As a child I neer worried about her weight, she was a very active little girl and she ate everything that was put in front of her without any issues. Kayleigh did have a preference for pasta dishes and roast dinner. as she got into her upper primary school years, I started noticing that she wasn't eating her lunch. I asked Kayleigh and she said she wasn't hungry at lunch time, but she always came home from school and ate things in the cupboard or fridge. I got a little frustrated and then told her to make her own sandwiches if she wasn't going to eat what I had made. I then found that Kayleigh didn't make her lunch at all. I approached her Year 6 teacher and asked her to ensure that Kayleigh was eating her lunch, but she never did, which annoyed me. By this stage Kayleigh was the smallest built girl in the year (and the shortest) but I think from what I know now, Kayleigh stopped eating at school because the other girls teased her and called her fat (!).

In year 7 at High School, I noticed again that she wasn't eating her lunch and I rang up her year group teacher Mr Haidon. He spoke with Kayleigh and figured out that she wasn't eating her sandwiches because they were jam sandwiches, which are high in sugar and in Kayleigh's mind, not healthy. Mr Haidon arranged with the canteen to make Kayleigh salad sandwiches - best thing ever. Kayleigh then ate lunch every day without fail. I told her that if she didn't Mr Haidon would find out and she would get into trouble, but she really enjoyed her (healthy) salad sandwiches so it wasn't an issue. (thank you Mr Haidon!)

When we got the Wii for Christmas that year, it had a BMI calculator built in, and weekly I would get Kayleigh to measure herself. She was always hovering around the bottom of the healthy weight range and many times she slipped into the 'underweight' category - most of these times were just after she grew. The worst measurement she had was 4 kilos under just after she had been sick for a couple of days. I always told her that she was genetically skinny (just look at her dad) but it was important for her to maintain her weight in the healthy category as underweight people, when they get sick, don't have the resources to help them get better faster. I also told her is she stayed under for too long I would take her to the doctor - something she didn't want to do. Kayleigh did take this to heart and tried to ensure that she was above the line.

At her passing, Kayleigh weight just 45 kgs, which with her height of 158 cm (just 4 cm shorter than her dad) put her just above the healthy weight line.

Split lip

Every year since Kayleigh was about 6 in autumn, her lips would dry out and she would get a split in her lip in the same spot every time. It didn't matter what we tried to do, it still split. Some years it would get better quickly but one year it did split quite badly and it took weeks and weeks to heal. after that she had a small scar under her lip where the split was. The funny thing it always coincided with Natassja getting a sore on her lip. Kayleigh never really complained about it, even though it must have really hurt as it would often bleed and it looked really bad.

Memory: Jordon Primrose

Jordon was Kayleigh's friend in the early primary school years until Jordon moved school.

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Kayleigh
We've always been really close we have known each other since we were tiny little kids we went to school together we played together and we shared laughs and smiles for many long years, we had so many memories of playing around having water and mud fights which i don't think our parents appreciated but whenever i was around you i always had fun no matter what we were doing, as i look back and think we never did once fight and it made our friendship stronger, i miss you a tons and you were a healthy young child but you were taken away but i will never forget you i love you more and more each day ♥

Climbing the tree

In Year 5, Kayleigh got into the habit of climbing a tree on the way home from school. Natassja and their friend Alexandra would clamber up into this tree and see how far up, or across the branches they could get. Kayleigh, being her normal self would climb up to the top of the tree until the branches were too thin to support her.

To get into the tree, sometimes they would give each other a push up the truck until they could reach to lower branch and then Kayleigh decided to try another method. This tree, at that time has branches the were closer to the ground because of it's position near an underpass, with the steep sides of the ground where it goes up to the shops and the road level. Kayleigh located a suitable branch, that required her to jump up and grasp one of the twigs, and then pull the branch down until she could hold onto a thicker part. Kayleigh then jumped and swung and 'monkey walked' one hand over the other until the branch was thick enough for her to swing her legs up and around the branch. From there she pulled herself over until she was the right way up. Kayleigh, Natassja and Alexandra climbed that tree ever day while the parents stood around at the base chatting. When it was time to go, Kayleigh then climbed out on the other side of the tree, grabbed the branch she was standing on and then swung herself down. There was normally about 1 to 1 1/2 metres between herself and the ground but she let go of the branch without fear. Mind you she was landing on rather uneven ground but it never worried her and she never hurt herself. Kayleigh really had no fear when climbing that tree and I will always remember the happiness on her face as she stood at the top, the tallest thing around.

Image Kayleigh at the top in her rainbow jumper.
Note that they have now cut the lower branches off :( Spoil sports.

Drawing

Kayleigh liked to draw but because Natassja is quite talented at drawing I think she felt that her drawings weren't as good. I know that she said she always wanted to be better at drawing  - probably to give Natassja a run for her money - the same way Natassja always said she wanted to be more flexible like Kayleigh so she could be competitive with something Kayleigh was good at.

One week, Kayleigh put alot of effort into drawing the Chelsea football club symbol. It was on her doona cover. I watched Kayleigh draw some of it, and she was so careful and spent probably close to 10 hours drawing it before colouring it in. It wasn't prefect, but Kayleigh was really proud of it.

Another Kayleigh drew was a copy of a doodle that I drew. It is a flower that's started of as a star, with the petals drawn around it. I drew it once, and then Kayleigh copied it everywhere. I found scribbles of it in her drawing book and in the school books. The picture that I have attached below is one of the last she did. If I was ever to get a tattoo, it would be of this.

LIZOG - Don't ask me what it is, or why she drew it

The "d" word

During  Year 6, Kayleigh often came home miserable, angry and uncommunicative. For people that knew her after she started high school, this might be hard to imagine.

Kayleigh on the whole was a bright cheerful girl who tried hard not to let things get to her, but after a lengthy period of being every Year 6 girls' butt of every joke, and copping it from everyone around her, Kayleigh self -esteem got to an all time low. Kayleigh would talk about how stupid she was and how she didn't get how to scan documents into the computer when every one else could and how she had no friends. During real low points we would get into arguments and she would tell me that she wanted to be dead, because no one would miss her and it would be easier without her. I always hugged her then, even though she struggled, and told her that it would get easier, that these girls wouldn't be in her life forever (most of them went to MacKillip). We had days that Kayleigh refused to go to school - point blank refusal - and I didn't have it in my heart to make her go.

Kayleigh often wrote on the wood under her bed, funny things, naughty rude things, and things about how she felt. A number of times she wrote 'I just want to die'. As a parent is was so distressing for us because Kayleigh wasn't doing anything wrong, she was being bullied by girls who thought it was amusing to make fun of her, cut her hair, steal her things and push her around. Kayleigh hated school then and hated herself for no good reason and the best thing that happened was starting high school and finding out that people, on the whole, are nice and would stick up for her if someone said something nasty. I look at her scribblings under her bed and think to myself that yes, sometimes Kayleigh felt that she was useless and unliked but there was no way that she did actually want to die.

The writing under the bed.