Although I knew that Suzanne’s death was imminent, it was still a great shock to me when it came, and all the many feelings that I had been bottling up over the last eighteen months or so came tumbling out in uncontrollable tears. It was not just the sadness surrounding the loss of a good friend, but also all the pent up emotions relating to the sickness and death of my mother, my relationship with my father and, above all, the confusion over my gender identity. Ever since I’d been fifteen or so I’d taught myself to hide what I was really feeling in case it should upset anybody. This technique had worked fairly well for a while but I’d now reached a point where it would no longer do so. I held on to Andy and simply could not stop myself from weeping.

Once again Andy proved to be a great help at a time of crisis — a real brick. He held on tight and comforted me for several minutes until my tears gradually began to subside. He then rang the doctor for me, and called Debbie. She was just about to finish work, and came over as quickly as she could. Andy stayed in the background and cooked an evening meal for the three of us, whilst Debbie helped me to deal with the doctor and answer all his questions. Despite her age, Suzanne’s death was entirely to be expected, given her medical condition and so the doctor confirmed that there would be no need for him to inform the coroner or to hold a post-mortem. He asked to see her NHS Medical Card, which I was able to provide, and so he naturally issued the medical certificate in the name of Suzanne Fisher — the name he had treated her by and with which she had lived under for the last five years or so. As there were no known relatives, I was present at her death and I would be the person arranging her funeral, he told me that I would be the most appropriate person to register the death at the Kensington and Chelsea Registry Office on Monday. We telephoned a Funeral Director who came and collected Suzanne's body, but we wouldn,t be able to proceed with arrangements for a funeral, until the death had been registered.

Our evening meal turned out to be a sombre affair rather than the celebration that Andy had originally planned. I was still in a deep state of shock and would periodically begin sobbing, as something that one of us said reminded me of some previous incident involving Suzanne. My two friends comforted me, and didn’t show any surprise or impatience with my tearfulness. I would have liked Andy to stay the night and to hold me, but I dared not suggest it to him. Instead Debbie offered to stay and provided me with the companionship and support that I so needed. She had originally planned to go out with her boyfriend, but had phoned him to explain.

Andy returned the following morning, which was a Saturday, and Debbie’s boyfriend joined us as well. By this time I was beginning to hold it together, but there were still occasional lapses into sadness. There was not a lot that anyone could do until I’d been to register the death on Monday. Debbie and Guy offered to take us out to dinner, but I didn’t like the idea of leaving the house, and so they organised a take away instead. I also insisted that everyone should go home on Saturday evening, as I couldn’t expect everyone to put their lives ‘on hold’ for my sake.

Thus it was not until Sunday morning that I was left on my own in the flat for the first time, and I used the opportunity to read through the letter of instruction that Suzanne had left for me. She had written it on the 24th January, the day the doctor and the nurse had come to the flat to discuss her future. She must have written it whilst I was having my preliminary interview with Dr Underwood.

Dear Clare/Tom,
I am sure that you now must realise how desperate my condition really is and that my death in February will not come as too much of a shock to you. I revised my will as soon as you agreed to stay and look after me, earlier this month, and this letter will explain my last wishes. I suspect that you may wish to continue living as Clare after my demise and hope that I will live long enough to see you make up your mind on this matter. However, at the time I write this letter I cannot be sure, and would not wish to push you into anything against your will. As I have said to you before, you must now take responsibility for your future and who you really are.

Basically I will be offering you two alternatives. If you decide to revert to being Tom Evans you will receive a  £5,000 legacy from my will which, together with the insurance money you have recently received, should be enough to pay for your accommodation and living costs until you’re able to re-establish yourself as a young man and find yourself a new job. In such case there will be no Clare Simpson to execute my will, which will therefore be administered by my solicitor. The bulk of the remaining money from my estate will be given to charity (apart from two  £5,000 bequests to my friends Eleanor and Christine, whom are both in Africa). If, on the other hand, you decide to continue living as Clare Simpson and execute my will, you will benefit by more than  £25,000 in residual monies from my estate, together with about seven years remaining on the lease of my flat. This should give you the funding and stability necessary to enable you to complete your transition into a woman, and to pay for any surgery, rather than having to spend time on NHS waiting lists. Of course, in this case there will be no Tom Evans to receive his  £5,000 bequest and so I have added the provision that if Tom cannot be traced within three months of my death, the money should be paid to my new friend, Deborah Finch.

I leave it to you to decide what to do about the annuity paid in to Clare’s bank account each month. It is not enough to prevent you from ever working again, but if you decide to leave things as they are, it will be a useful supplement to your future earnings. Also, you will find all the documentation necessary to renew Clare’s passport. Fortunately this passport was taken out before they started to include biometric data, so there should be no difficulty for you to renew it with your photograph and signature.

You may also have any of my clothes, jewellery or cosmetics that you wish to keep, although, as an attractive young woman, I suspect you will soon wish to start choosing your own clothes and developing your own look. You will find more than enough ready money in my room to buy yourself a new outfit for my funeral, if you choose to do so. I hope you will not be too sad at my demise and will soon start to enjoy yourself as Clare; that has always been my wish for you. I wish I could have lived to witness you transform into the mature woman that I suspect you should have been, but feel privileged to have been in at the beginning of that process.

The remainder of the letter dealt with technical issues such as where to find documents and what monies and other assets there were, together with her wishes for her funeral and cremation. There was no-one for me to notify and she wanted no memorial or public announcement of her death. However, if I was ever able to travel to Melbourne, I should take her ashes with me to scatter them in the same place as those of her mother and father.

My reaction on reading the letter was to feel both intensely sad and yet grateful to Suzanne for everything that she had given me. She had helped me to discover who I really was and enabled my new life. I was so pleased that she had lived long enough for me to make my irrevocable decision about my future and that she had witnessed me take my first oestrogen tablet. For some time now there had been no doubt in my mind about my future life, and from the tone of her letter I suspect she knew that as well. In any event, I was hardly going to deprive my good friend Debbie of a  £5,000 bequest!

That evening I destroyed all the remaining official documentation that I held for Tom Evans — his passport, birth certificate, National Insurance certificate. As far as I was concerned he no longer existed. My future life was as Clare Simpson, and everyone I came across would have to deal with that fact. I had recently transferred all of the money out of Tom’s two accounts into Clare’s account. The last action I ever took in the name of Tom Evans, was to write to his bank and close them.

That is pretty much the end of my story, or at least it is the end of the first part involving my dealings with Suzanne. At some point I may come back and tell the entire story of my transition to a woman, but not for the time being as I would not be sure at what point to end it. In many respects the story is still continuing as every day I discover some new aspect of my life. However, in the meanwhile, there is no harm in giving you a brief summary of what has happened to me over the last five and a half years since Suzanne’s death.

During the following week I completed the various administrative matters necessary after any death, and organized the funeral and cremation, in accordance with Suzanne’s stated wishes. There were no problems and all the paperwork was in order. I notified Eleanor and Christine by email and arranged for some flowers to be delivered to the funeral on their behalf, and of course from myself. Debbie and I also went out together to buy ourselves new outfits for the funeral. The funeral itself turned out to be a very quiet, rather poignant affair, with only Debbie and myself, our two boyfriends, Suzanne’s doctor, the district nurse, and my friend’s solicitor in attendance. We all went for lunch together in a local hotel afterwards. The solicitor handed over the will to me, together with various other documents as I was named as the executor. I had no difficulty in getting a grant of probate in due course.

Fortunately I was able to return to working part-time for the same company without too much difficulty. Karen had avoided making any long term arrangements for my replacement, realising that I would probably wish to return after Suzanne’s death. The part-time job was ideal as it gave me the time and opportunity to sort out Suzanne’s affairs and establish my new identity whilst continuing to attend my appointments at the Charing Cross clinic. These progressed well and I continued taking the oestrogen, which in due course began to have its desired effect.

I managed to renew ‘Clare’s’ passport with my new photograph, signature and biometric data. Ever since then I have had no difficulty in proving to the authorities that I am Clare Simpson or when travelling abroad. I felt a little guilty about continuing to receive the annuity from Suzanne’s father, but was not in a position to announce that Clare had died. Once I had received enough money to finance the visit to Melbourne to scatter her ashes, I salved my conscience by contributing all the future payments . to a transgender charity. I am glad to say that nobody has ever come looking for, or asking awkward questions about either Suzanne Fisher or Clare Simpson.

Andy and I eventually got to understand, then to like, and eventually to love one another and we have been an ‘item’ ever since. As I think I may have mentioned, he lost his job with Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and was unable to find another job in banking. Fortunately though he had been quite prudent with his savings and investments in the heady days before the bursting of the financial bubble, and so we combined our resources and got married in June 2009 soon after I’d recovered from my sex reassignment surgery. My marriage provided me with the opportunity to have joint British citizenship and acquire a British passport as Clare. Andy and I now live in Yorkshire, midway between our respective parents, and have opened a small restaurant. This is struggling, but is just about managing to keep going, and I feel it has plenty of potential once the economy picks up again. I don’t think Andy’s parents are aware about my background and he has clearly not told them as they keep dropping hints about grandchildren.

Suzanne was right that I would soon begin to enjoy buying my own clothes and developing my own look as a woman, and I have always enjoyed looking my best and keeping up with fashion. Yet I have also found it quite difficult to get rid of many of the clothes that she had given to me. The upshot is that I now possess a substantial wardrobe acquired over the years, which has been a source of great pleasure to me. Andy is always complaining about the number of clothes I have, but they are my only small extravagance, and I don’t make too much fuss about the couple of vintage motorcycles that he is rebuilding in the back garden.

I’ve remained very close to Debbie over the years, and, although we live some distance apart we have long girly chats on the phone or via the Internet at least once a week. I was her chief bridesmaid when she married Guy in the summer of 2008, and Andy and I are the Godparents of their first child, a daughter born early in 2009. Since then, she has produced one child each year and seems to be one of those women who thrives on being pregnant. Guy has recently suggested that perhaps four children is enough for them, so Debbie has asked me whether Andy and I would like her to act as a surrogate mother for our family, by means of artificial insemination with Andy’s sperm. The possibility of having our own baby both thrills and yet frightens me but it would certainly complete our life together. Andy is very keen on the idea, and Guy says that he would not be unhappy with the prospect, so I think we will probably go ahead. If we have a little girl I am determined to call her Suzanne in remembrance of my late friend.

Dad has been totally accepting of my new life and was supportive of me when I went in to hospital to finish the job. He and Vera have not married but have remained close friends and frequently go out together. Andy and I often visit them both and always receive a friendly welcome when we do so. In fact I have been really happy with my life as a woman, as Andy’s wife, as dad’s daughter, and perhaps one day as a mother myself. I only wish that my Mum could have seen how well things have worked out for me before she died.