Who was Lily?

Lily Sparrow was 27 years old when she died and, in that time, she had accomplished a great deal.  Aside from her family and friends her great love was our environment; this love took her to Sri Lanka researching the 3-toed pangolin and its environment.  When she returned from this trip, we had to unpack her rucksack over tarpaulin to potentially catch any scorpions that may have snuck in, luckily, there were none.  She spent time in Zambia researching snake populations in a national park and excitingly had a close encounter with a hippopotamus munching fruit outside her tent in the early hours!  Lily also loved spending her time along the Suffolk coast and countryside, searching for adders and grass snakes.

From a small child Lily loved dinosaurs, dragons and mythology, she would watch, read, draw and access anything linked to these loves.  She was a fiercely loyal friend and devoted sibling to Jasmine and Benjamin.  She had stunning long ginger hair and was covered in gorgeous freckles, all who knew her can bring to mind her infectious giggle.

As a child Lily spent time teaching her sister Jasmine to cartwheel on the Mansion lawn, sledging down Hippy Hill in the winter holding her toddler brother Benji.  As a family we would have picnic teas in the park after school and of course collect abundant amounts of conkers (such was Lilys love for conkers she had a conker tattoo on her arm!).  As a student Lily would sit with her friends on Hippy Hill, drinking cider and putting the world to rights.  Also, plenty of dog walks with our little dog Billy.  The monkey puzzle trees in the Arboretum were always referred to by our family as the ‘spickly’ tree, coined by her brother Benjamin.  Lily adopted this adjective so much she often would use it in a sentence with people who had no idea of its meaning!

We chose not to have a grave for Lily and instead have her ashes at home. Therefore, having a place that family, friends and all who knew Lily could visit whenever they wanted felt very important to us.  Having this place as a bench in Christchurch Park felt perfect to us.  Lily had a huge love of corvids, especially magpies, those who visit her bench often bring magpie or crow feathers and tuck them in the ribbons on the bench.  We collected conkers and placed them there this morning.

We visit regularly and know many of Lily’s friends do too. The bench is in such a peaceful spot in the arboretum and therefore has become a place of reflection or sitting with friends chatting away and regularly bringing Lilys imagined comments into the conversation.

There have been times when we have been to the bench and people have been sat there who did not know Lily, it has then been a lovely experience to tell them about her and answer their questions about such a wonderful, very loved and much missed young woman.

The message on Lily’s bench says “Love, love is a verb”. This is taken from a song by Massive Attack called Teardrop.  This was one of Lilys favourite songs and we played it at her funeral.  Lily lived her life showing love to all people, living creatures and the natural world.  She was incredibly non-judgmental, inclusive and kind.  There are 2 dragons either side of the quote which reflects Lilys love of palaeontology and mythology, the original line drawing was by Lilys sister Jasmine.

The next line of the Massive Attack song is “Love is a doing word”. So please show love to ALL people and our environment by carrying out acts that show your love.

Lily’s story was kindly shared by Simon and Cate Sparrow.

You can find her bench is in the Arboretum in Christchurch Park, Ipswich.