April 1, 2017
I was fifteen when I met her. In the choir room at Glendale High School our sophomore year, I quickly discovered that Tiff was a gorgeous, kind, long and lean force of bubbly energy and talent. Our friendship was instantaneous. She taught me to PRESS, which is a word and action in response to anything icky, uncomfortable, stressful. For example, her death makes me press. She would completely understand.
It was a Monday morning when I opened the front door to my Nydia, who told me Tiffany was dead. In the midst of the horror of this, her sweet husband didn't want me to find out another way.
I nearly collapsed under the weight of Tiffany's death. But I owed her more than that. I owe her more than that. She had buoyed me up so many times, I couldn't allow her death to sink me. That would have disappointed her.
Our dads were friends, and both named Bill. I called her parents "Father Bill" and "Mother Kay." She called my Pops "Father Rowe." I marveled at the joy in her home and her family life. Her folks were remarkable and she was the happiest person I knew who was real.
When she left for Baylor, I wept and she stood on her front steps giggling and waving excitedly. Were it any other, I might have been offended that she wasn't a tad sad to leave me and home. But it was Tiff.
We married two weeks apart and were in each other's weddings. She was the first friend to come into the delivery room after Gracie was born. I can still see her smile then. And I can still hear the love in her voice when Reagan was born, and when Will miraculously arrived. She loved them with all her bits and pieces and her whole heart.
I don't understand why chronic pain had to land on my exuberant friend. But it did. And as the years passed, layers of the onion peeled away and I realized how immensely talented this sweet girl was at hiding struggle. When she finally let me really see her, I loved her even more.
Her life became more and more confined as she fought neuropathy and back pain that I can't imagine. But when we talked, her focus was always outward. She was an incredible listener and an insightful respondent. She cared genuinely. And her laugh...
Tiffany was exceptional. She fought, she won and lost, she cared, she hurt, she soldiered on. I will miss her greeting me with "My Nance!" I will miss her unconditional friendship. I will miss her. Forever.
But I will try to live a life that would make her laugh. That wouldn't disappoint. That wouldn't make her press.
I owe her that.
