Sometimes, out of nowhere, I see a flash of purple.
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It’s subtle and when I blink it’s gone.
It’s been happening for years but as I get older, I pay more attention.
I know what it is now. It’s my angel, with her perfect little blonde bobbed hair, her piercing blue eyes and heart-melting smile flashing by.
I haven’t seen her in the flesh for years and years but her face is cemented in my mind.
Alice Jane Sjollema loved the colour purple and fluffy, white kittens.
When she got really sick from chemotherapy, steroids, and the cocktail of drugs to treat her leukaemia, she especially liked Wheetbix, lots of them, with lots and lots of sugar.
That’s what I remember most about the gorgeous little pint-sized girl who in her short little life touched thousands of people.
In her home town of Griffith, everyone knew her name. At Ronald McDonald House, where she stayed during long stints in Sydney for treatment, she was a favourite resident.
At Camp Quality she melted hearts.
Little Alice Jane was something special – she had an angelic aura.
It’s almost as if she was never meant to mature into an adult and lose her innocence.
She was always an angel – merely served her time on this earth to touch so many.
Her home town raised thousands of dollars for leukaemia research, touched by her fight, spirit and determination television documentaries were made in her honour.
To me, Alice was a special friend and her family became my family.
I arrived on their doorstep as a cadet journalist ready to interview Alice’s mum about fundraising efforts to find a cure for chronic myeloid leukaemia – the evil disease that was slowly tearing her daughter from her arms.
For the next few precious years I was lucky enough to have Alice in my life.
And now, all these years later, she’s still her, I feel her presence at the times when I need her most.
Skeptics may say it’s crazy.
Believers in afterlife will nod their heads and know exactly what I’m talking about.
While no one can really give concrete proof, stories of visions and images of spirit are pretty remarkable.
Some say they feel a gentle touch on their head, arm of back, or get a sense that someone is stroking their hair.
I see the colour purple and I don’t need any more proof than that.
Alice is out there, spreading her angle wings and looking down on those she touched in life.
Anyone who really knew her will know what I mean.
