Sophie’s Legacy

by Lesley Elliot

  When Sophie started at university she wasn’t one for the casual clothing many students are comfortable in. She generally wore very smart tailored jackets and jeans. One day it might be a dark green or rose-pink jacket and another day a denim jacket. Sophie loved clothes and wore stylish things to perfection and she had a figure I could only dream of. Her dress sense started from the time she was a little girl. I used to make all her dresses and every Christmas, birthday and even Easter I’d sew another dress for her, together with a matching outfit for one of her many dolls. I had a daughter, I loved sewing, so it was natural I’d be making her lots of pretty things. Other preschoolers might be running around in track pants, but I couldn’t get Sophie into trousers no matter what I tried. If I was on duty during a weekend Gil would be left to look after the kids so I’d always lay out a pinafore or skirt for Sophie before going to work. Sometimes I’d come home and the pinafore might be on back to front. One day Gil decided to dress her in track pants — so much easier, he thought — and wondered why Sophie was grumpy all day. So that was Sophie as a little girl — really ‘girly’ and that was nice.

  Sophie started ballet at age four and I think this had a big influence on her grooming. She had to be well turned out at ballet, even for classes, and that grooming naturally followed on into her later years. If there was one thing Sophie had a love for, it was dance. She took ballet lessons for eight years and only gave up because she had reached a level where it began to become a serious pursuit rather than just fun. Like most parents who have children in after-school activities, there is always a mad dash to get home, have afternoon tea, change and get to the activity on time. Our home was no different and sometimes if Sophie was tired she’d say she didn’t want to go, but we still did. I’d go off to do other things while she was in class. I can clearly remember some occasions where she reluctantly went along but when I picked her up she’d come dancing out, quite happy, with no sign of the grumpiness of an hour earlier. Sophie was quite accomplished at ballet and was very good at rhythm and movement. She learnt traditional classical ballet as well as modern, and beyond that joined dance classes at the university Clubs and Societies Centre. So dance was a big part of her life and she just loved it. She was forever twirling around in the house and I think dance was not only an opportunity to express herself but also a release for her abundant energy, especially when she was happy.

  She took piano lessons and played quite well, but not as well as her brother Chris, who is quite an accomplished musician. I think this frustrated Sophie because she would hear him on the piano in the lounge and say, ‘Listen to him. He doesn’t have lessons yet he can play anything.’ She was also a very good singer though she didn’t think so.

  One area of the performing arts Sophie really excelled in was drama. One of my earliest memories of Sophie on stage was in a play and I could hardly believe what I was seeing and hearing. She had all the confidence in the world and was very good. Music, dance, singing and drama loomed large in her life, but when I think back to the very beginning it was hard to imagine that’s how Sophie would turn out.

  Sophie was a late, somewhat unexpected baby. Because of the age gap between Sophie and her brothers, there were few children her own age to mix with. None of our adult friends had young children so Sophie was actually a very quiet and shy wee girl. I enrolled Sophie in play centre for her to meet others her own age and between that and kindy Sophie really came out of herself and her shyness evaporated. Initially, when any boys got a bit rough she would come to me in tears, but she quickly learnt that wasn’t the way to go and from kindergarten days she never took a backward step.

  She remained a ‘girly’ girl. We had all sorts of toys at home like trucks and trains. She showed a passing interest in a large train set, but give her a doll and she was happy. She loved dolls and everything that went with them. Our home had been largely a male domain for a long time and I know that Gil wasn’t too keen on having a lot of dolls around the house. On one occasion I was in bed after night shift and Gil took Sophie to a toy warehouse to get something for one of the boys. Sophie only had a couple of dolls that were formerly mine and must have got it into her little head that she wanted one of her very own. In the warehouse there was a bin full of small, soft, floppy dolls. She picked one out and no matter what Gil said or did she wouldn’t put it back. The doll was a boy that she named Jimmy and we still have it. Jimmy was the first of many dolls in Sophie’s collection and was the love of her life for some time.

  When Sophie was due to begin intermediate school we were fortunate to enrol her at St Hilda’s Collegiate and she just loved her time there. The school recognised where students needed other stimuli and in Sophie’s final year she did two papers at university. In the seventh form the girls wear mufti, and Sophie made the transition from school to uni and back again so easily. Sophie needed that mental stimulus and loved the challenge. It was a full-on year but it set her on the road to academic excellence. Her last year of schooling was one of achievements and proud moments for us. Before we went to that final prizegiving, I asked her if she might get a prize and she said she didn’t think so. When her name was read out as joint proxime accessit I just burst into tears. That was an exquisite moment.

  Even with all the school work and other activities Sophie was engaged in, she still wanted an after-school job. She didn’t really need one but she was an independent young thing. If she wanted clothes she believed she should earn the money to buy them herself. In her latter college years, Sophie worked in a supermarket bakery a couple of nights a week cleaning trays, icing buns — that sort of thing. One evening the bakery staff had left for the night, leaving Sophie to clean the large baking trays. These were washed in enormous sinks that took some time to fill with hot soapy water. While the sink was filling Sophie went on to other tasks and became so engrossed in what she was doing she overlooked the taps still running. The result was water everywhere. She frantically swept all the water from the bakery floor out the door, but not before several bags of flour were soaked. She was mortified at the mistake, which only came about by being diligent with another task. Poor Sophie. But I guess we all learn from our mistakes.

  After about a year she left to work at a video rental store, usually working on Friday nights or weekends. Being a bit of a movie buff, she fitted in well and worked hard. Sophie was a fastidious cleaner and when not serving customers she would be dusting shelves etc — always busy. I wasn’t too happy with her working there because at night she was usually on her own until closing at midnight and potentially it was quite dangerous. I could see the video store from the hospital and often if I was on night shift would look down the road and see her bring the sandwich board in and turn off the lights. It was always a relief to see her car drive away. I guess mums just worry. However, these things never worried Sophie and she happily worked there for a couple of years.

  Then an opportunity arose where she could combine her great passion for photography with work. During her final year at university, Sophie found employment at a Spectrum photography outlet and every weekend, one day but often both days, she could be found at work. How she fitted it all in I’ll never know, but she didn’t complain. Sophie adored working at Spectrum and since she died we have heard from the owners, who told us just what an asset she was. Sophie was incredibly patient at explaining things. Sometimes she would come home and tell me about old people (probably my age) coming in for a digital camera to take on holiday. She would explain how the camera worked, which one best suited their needs and usually left them with an invitation to come back if it needed further explanation. I was told that several customers did this, asking for the girl with long hair who could explain things really well.

  The personal statement Sophie wrote in her job application with Spectrum is so typically her — a bit cheeky, but very much to the point and optimistically positive.

  From my four years of employment in the customer service industry, I’ve begun to learn the useful skill of dea
ling with a diverse range of people, from the impatient, to the confused, to the downright difficult — and that’s just the staff! As someone involved in the running of an organisation, I’m certain you know the value of an employee who will pull their weight and help keep things running smoothly, both externally with customers, and internally with co-workers and workplace procedures. I would really like the opportunity to discuss with you what you require from an employee and whether or not my skills would be helpful to your organisation.

  Sophie was forever taking candid shots of people at work and play. I would be working away in the kitchen then hear a click and there was Sophie, taking yet another picture. Often she would walk around our garden and photograph a leaf here or a flower there, and if it was a particularly nice sunset she would race off and get the camera again. Sophie didn’t regard herself as having much artistic flair, but I think she did. She admired well-known photographers and it wouldn’t have surprised me if sometime in the future she would have eventually given economics away to take up photography full time.

  Poor old Kade became one of her favourite subjects. Sophie’s photography bag sat on the floor in the dining room and as soon as she started fiddling in it for the camera you could see him start to twitch. She took every angle possible and even tried to capture expressions on his face. I don’t know how Kade put up with her. I remember Kade scratching Gil because he annoyed him, but Sophie could do anything to that cat. She could pick him up and hold him on his back with his hind legs against her and he would lean forward and kiss her on the nose. And he never scratched her, no matter what she did. The day Sophie died there were boxes everywhere as we prepared for her move to Wellington and it was obvious Kade knew something was going on. He would lie in places he’d never been before and you would step back and nearly tread on him. Sophie first saw Kade in a litter at my brother’s farm. I said she couldn’t have him as we already had a cat, but the next weekend we were at their house again and she made a beeline for the kitten. I couldn’t resist any longer and so Kade came home with us. He was pretty special.

  One really pleasurable memory for me is when we gave Sophie a travel bag for Christmas when she was about 16. On unwrapping it she was somewhat perplexed at our choice of gift — that was until she opened the bag and found airline tickets for her and me to go to Australia to visit her brothers in Sydney and Melbourne. What an enjoyable trip that was — except for my sore feet. I’m not a great shopper but Sophie was in her element. We did shop after shop and mall after mall — she must have gone into every woman’s dress shop. It was a delight to see her so happy, but I had to laugh at her naïveté. We had a budget of sorts and on one occasion she asked me how things were looking. I said we were getting close to the limit, to which she replied, ‘Oh, don’t worry — if we run out we’ll just ask Dad for some more.’ Teenage logic and that from someone who would be appointed to an economics position in Treasury just a few years later! Sophie really enjoyed that trip and that’s what it was all about — and now, on reflection — it was good that we had a trip like that together, very much a girls’ thing.

  Sophie could be frustrating but not from any high opinion of herself. She worked hard and got the marks but she was never arrogant about it. Most of the frustrations came from her need for perfection. I might say to her, ‘Soph, 90 per cent! Pretty good,’ but she would retort with ‘Yes, but I could have got 95 per cent.’ Sometimes that striving to be the best and wanting it all to be perfect can be difficult to live with. Even in things like appearances, Sophie set high standards for herself and when you do that people living with you can find it a bit frustrating.

  A good example was when it came time to hand in her dissertation. Talk about a perfectionist! I couldn’t believe the indecision that went on about the cover. The colour had to be just so. She came home from the stationery shop with all sorts of cards in just about every colour imaginable. Personally I couldn’t have cared less. The dissertation had consumed much of her life in those last few months and I would just be pleased to see her hand it in. I think there was as much stress in deciding on a cover as there was in writing up what went between the covers. In the end she chose silver, which made me laugh. After all this fuss about colour, she chose something as neutral as silver, but that was my Sophie — a perfectionist to the end.

  When I went to Wellington in 2007 as her support for job interviews, Sophie was stressed to the max. There were interviews with Treasury, the Reserve Bank and the Ministry of Economic Development. The term ‘interview’ is a bit of a misnomer because she had already done extensive preliminary interviews in Dunedin. In Wellington there were formal interviews interspersed with problem-solving exercises, psychometric testing and group work. Two interviews took a full day each and the other was half a day so it certainly wasn’t easy.

  I could tell Sophie was very nervous and stressed when we arrived at the hotel because she got quite snappy with me when I offered to help her with her wardrobe. She was adamant she could manage and went off to her room. A few minutes later there was a timid knock on my door and Sophie asking me if I could iron her pleated skirt. Girls under stress can’t do without their mums.

  While in Wellington, Sophie thought we should visit Te Papa one evening. She had noticed a sandwich board saying Brian Easton, the well-known economics columnist for the Listener, was giving a lecture. She wanted to hear him so I dutifully tagged along. The talk he gave was way above my head but Sophie was fascinated and virtually sitting on the edge of her seat. I could see she understood it all and was quite excited. She even asked well-reasoned questions during the audience participation time. Watching Sophie I realised she had made it. This student from Otago University was now a young woman about to embark on a career in the world of economics.

  On the way home the airline completely messed up the arrangements by overbooking the flight and that led to me having to stay in Christchurch for several hours while Sophie flew home. As I had the car keys she was stranded at Dunedin airport, meaning she had to get a taxi home for a horrendously expensive amount. I’d had to pay extra for my ticket on the plane so I wasn’t in a good frame of mind when I got home either. This was compounded by the stresses of Wellington and led to a pretty massive bust-up. We’d had tiffs before but nothing quite like this one. She also had Clayton Weatherston on her mind as I found out later. Interestingly I had detected changes in Sophie’s personality at that stage.

  One thing I’ll say about Sophie is she could be headstrong and would argue with me but she always made it up soon after. She gave me a block of chocolate and a handwritten note expressing how sorry she was for being argumentative. I still have that note on a wall in my study. So that was Sophie, never one to hold a grudge. She loved to do special things for people. Gifts for birthdays or Christmas were good examples. She put a lot of thought into what she might give and it was always appropriate. She had a mischievous personality and would often give gifts, particularly to her brothers, that would raise a laugh.

  Despite the odd frustrations along the way and the occasional tantrum, Sophie was a delight to have around. We had lots of special moments. Often I’d wake up in the day after a night shift and she would hop up onto my bed and chatter away. When I think back now I realise what lovely mother–daughter moments we had — the sort of moments we take for granted and probably don’t appreciate until they are taken away from us.

  So that’s just a snapshot of Sophie. I don’t know whether there is a mother in New Zealand who could be prouder of their daughter. When that evil man took Sophie’s life he took from me something so utterly irreplaceable that it breaks my heart. Sophie, my daughter, my friend and my inspiration, is gone. She wasn’t an angel and she wasn’t perfect — but in my eyes she was close to it.

  It wasn’t just me who was left shattered by Sophie’s death. Although they were not home when this terrible event took place, her father and brothers were equally devastated at how Sophie died. Her loss has affected Gil, Nick and Chris in differ
ent ways and they can best explain that loss in their own words. Gil says:

  I remember quite vividly the day in 1984 when Lesley came into the lounge and casually announced, ‘Guess what, I’m pregnant.’ I certainly wasn’t expecting such news and retorted with ‘How did that happen?’ Despite Sophie being unplanned she was far from unwanted or unloved and when she was born it was one of those highlights in life you can’t forget and I would never want to. Sophie was a very special girl.

  I would describe Sophie, or Soph as we called her and she called herself, as the shining light in our family and a sort of ‘glue’ that kept us all together. She was far from spoilt and if she wanted something she had to earn it and this philosophy stood her in good stead. Sophie developed an independence and ethic of ‘if it’s worth having it’s worth working hard for’.

  I regret not spending as much time with her because of work commitments as I would have liked. Of course I thought there were still years ahead where I would make up for lost opportunities, but sadly this will not eventuate. Losing Sophie certainly puts into perspective the saying ‘treasure the moment’. My work in Central Otago meant visits home were sporadic and mostly confined to weekends, but when I did make it home I could always be guaranteed a warm welcome. But by the next day Sophie would want to know when I was going so she could get back to normal life with her mum. At one stage I worked in Kaitaia for 15 months. Commuting from one end of the country to the other wasn’t viable and this further inhibited my time with Sophie.

  I took immense pride in Sophie’s hard-earned achievements. I won’t dwell on these here because Lesley and our two sons have highlighted what she did and what she meant to us as a family. When I think of Sophie, I tend to remember seemingly inconsequential but nevertheless important things to me. The sort of simple little things I guess most families do, but that hold special significance. Bedtime as a little girl, for instance, became something of a ritual. She would jump onto my feet so I could walk her to her bedroom. On the way I’d lift her up onto the nightstore heater to allow her to climb onto my back before dropping her on the bed for a bounce. Simple pleasures that we sometimes take for granted yet which are of significance when you lose someone that meant so much.