My sister and I share godparents — a married couple who are old friends of my parents. Officially, the guy is my sister’s godparent and the wife is mine, but unofficially, we share!
I am six years old, my sister is eight, and my mum has just had her third child, our baby brother. Realising that she is in need of some peace and quiet, my godparents take my sister and me to an aquarium somewhere for the day.
We spend the day looking at all the different fish and some small sharks, and we eventually end up in the gift shop. I find a rubber bouncy ball I absolutely have to have; it’s half-blue, half-clear, with three small plastic dolphins positioned to look as though they’re jumping out of the blue half. Six-year-old me thinks it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I read the price tag, knowing my mum gave me a small amount of money to spend on the trip. However, being six, I also can’t resist the pick and mix stand! I put a small amount of candy in the paper bag and notice that they don’t have a scale out to measure how much it will be (and it’s priced by weight).
When I get to the till, the lady scans my sweets and ball and tells me the total. Whilst my weight estimation for the sweets turns out to be very accurate, I have misread the price tag for the ball and am £1 short. I begin to have what I think was my first ever panic attack. Being six years old, short of money, without my mum, and very scared of being thrown in retail jail — and completely unaware that I am fully allowed to just put the sweets back! — I am a few seconds short of either hyperventilating or crying or both.
Out of nowhere, my godmother appears by my side and senses the situation. She wordlessly reaches into her pocket and slides a £1 coin across the counter to the saleswoman. I say thank you (A LOT) but she brushes it off as no big deal. It was a huge deal; I needed a mum and she stepped right in.
She died recently (she had kidney failure my whole life), and only after speaking to some people did I find out that she did the same thing on a much larger scale for my University graduation. Knowing that my best friend, who lived over 150 miles away, couldn’t afford the hotel or travel, my lovely godparents picked her up, drove the entire way, and paid for her hotel room just so that they could all see me graduate.
She was utterly selfless, and I miss her endlessly.