Sarah

July 8, 2015

10 days before man walked on the moon, my best pal, Sarah, arrived on this planet. Today is the birthday of my dearest friend. We are marching up the hill together, but she is a few years ahead of me (bless her). 

Our friendship made its official launch toward the end of my high school career. Sarah, interestingly enough, was out of college and substitute teaching in my school. That cracked me up, because we had known each other for the entirety of my life, but the age difference was dissipating as a factor and our soul-centered bond was strengthening with every day or new adventure. Let's face it, when she was in 8th grade and I was in 3rd, hanging out would have been more of a babysitter/babysat situation...or just weird.

As I headed to college and Sarah to grad school at SMS, our lives stayed closely intertwined. If something happened, it wasn't real until I told Sarah. And that way it has remained these last 20+ years.

Sarah is my family, and I hers. Even in the midst of marrying, birthing babies and raising them, rising up in our careers and juggling all of it, we may go for bits at a time without a word, but we worry not. It's a security of affection and trust that I thank God for every day. 

Just after Sarah's youngest was born around 8 years ago, Sarah got sick. It seemed like a flu that wouldn't end. She lost weight, she lost energy. She was crawling up stairs and unable to open doors. I watched this athletic, energetic woman deteriorate and I realized that I might lose her. That we all might lose her. I was terrified.

Thank God, Sarah was diagnosed with Ciliac disease and her life was saved. Since then she has managed this son-of-a-bitch-but-we-guess-it-could-be-worse disease with class. 

I will never forget looking into an abyss of life without her in it. My eyes stung and my heart roared. But hey, we have plans to share a room in the home a long way down the line. Sarah may be habitually late, but she doesn't break plans!

Happy Birthday to my Sarah. I love you to the moon and back. In honor of this special day, I've complied a few of our finer moments in pictures. Most of them are not embarrassing.  

In summer of 1999, Sarah lived in Boston. I came for a visit. Here we are in the bathroom of a cool place to eat and shop called Marche. Sarah had on white shorts and sat in birdshit. We are cleaning it up here and felt the need to immortalize it on film. Ironically, we were vacationing in Mexico and few years ago and her hubby, Al, and I were together by the pool when a bird rained down toilet time on the both of us. Bonds formed after shat happens are bonds indeed.

Oh good Lord. The things we do for Jesus. We are staking tomato plants in Centralhatchee, Georgia on a college mission trip with our good buddy Jen. The best part of that trip--aside from moments like these--was the mother of the missionary with whom we were staying. Miss Erma was about a hundred years old and she sat in a chair in the corner of the living room with a bottle of Aqua Net to the side, by her feet. At random, she would lift the can to the hair up front, just above her forehead, and spray. We loved it.

The hair!!! But our legs are legit.

In Napa for Jen's wedding in 2005. Poor Sarah was pregnant, so I drank her share of the wine. That's the kind of friend I am.

At the wedding of our bud Amy, with Ellen and Heather. The five of us descend on Heather's family lake house once a year. We became a group around 13 years ago, when we would invade Heather's house every Wednesday to eat and drink and watch "Sex and the City." Sarah was the nucleus of the group, bringing all of us together. That is one of her many gifts. She effortlessly connects people. 

Sarah and Al, 2004. They make each other very happy, which makes me very happy. 

There aren't enough words or pics to do justice to who she is and what she means to me. Love you, Sar!

PS--Grace with Sarah's girls, Sophia and Lauren, and Amy's son Carter, as we celebrated Sarah's big day :)