Sista Sarah

Everybody needs a person.

What would I do without Sarah? I don’t want to know.

Sometimes I go months without hearing from Sarah. There have been long periods of absence. Her feelings are never hurt when I surface over a crisis. She’s never accused me of only needing her when life falls apart and she could have done that. I could have done that, too. But we’ve just had the most perfect friendship. We’ve been present at precisely the right times.

I did make Sarah mad just once. I didn’t show up to her 50th birthday party. I didn’t think she would miss me because she has a ton of friends. Plus, there would be dancing and I would rather have a root canal than boogie. But months later she told me that she’s been hurt that I didn’t show. I remember being really stunned that someone would think my presence mattered. I always assumed I was unforgettable amd that made Sarah really mad. That’s the moment I realized a big truth. Sarah was family.

I have been friends with Sarah for almost 30 years, but it was that moment that changed the way I thought about myself. I wasn’t actually generic. I had always believed, for a variety of reasons, that I was physically so unidentifiable that nobody would ever recognize me. I really did think that. But Sarah thought her party would be different if I was not there. What a concept.

I met Sarah at a crossroads in life. I had just gotten a divorce and moved to Tennessee from California. I knew absolutely nobody other than extended family some 60 miles away. I got a job transcribing at a hospital where Sarah worked. I have no idea what drew us to each other then because my memory is shot, but I know we hit it off right away. Sarah and her then husband moved into the duplex next door to me, then they got divorced and I moved in with Sarah. Dang we had fun. Just stupid silly fun. I was way too serious, still am, and Sarah made me laugh, still does.

Sarah was, and is, everything I am not. She allows herself to do things just for fun. She’s sparkly. She over achieves at everything. And I mean everything. She went from riding her bike up and down her street to becoming an elite athlete at the age of 50 something. She finished a triathlon. And she got her husband, in his late 60s, to go on this crazy athlete journey with her. She is present for all her children and their children, all her friends and colleagues. She’s indefatigable. She wears me out.

I get to take some credit for her husband, who turned out to be a sparkly gem, too. Sarah saw a personal ad he had placed in an alternative newspaper, back in the day when people did that. I could not believe the ad. It sounded like a male version of her. So I TOTALLY dared her to respond and she did. She is from East Tennessee so she refers to this as “triple dog dare.” The rest is history. So, every year when they celebrate their anniversary I remind her that she owes me for daring her to answer that ad.

While I take credit for playing a role in her finding the perfect husband, Sarah gets to take credit for keeping me alive. She is the picture of empathy. She can place herself in someone else’s shoes and feel their pain. It’s a remarkable quality.

Recently, when I was having a meltdown, Sarah came up with a way to get my life back on track.

“So here’s your assignment,” she wrote. “You met a woman who just turned 60. Her life is a mess. So, you’re going to follow her through this amazing transition as she kicks butt and takes names to get her health back. Both mental and physical. It will be a great inspirational story. It will be the first story on her website. People love comeback stories.”

That was the assignment from my bestie.

Sarah is not technically my sister, so that qualifies her for “sista” status, a universally recognized term for awesome-loyal-amazing-patient-friend. So, my Sista Sarah didn’t know what else to do with me one night as we messaged back and forth. She tried her usual cheerleading but the rah rah just wasn’t connecting and she could tell. She can always tell. So, out of nowhere, the gal that knows nothing about my writing process, gave me homework. I’m like what? Who does she think she is, giving me an assignment while I’m all broken and stuff? But when she gave me the homework, I miraculously turned back into a student, my favorite status.

What I left out above is the message Sista sent just before the assignment. I want to share it because it’s real. It’s two BF’s talking real life stuff in real time when nobody is looking.

Sista: “So what motivates you? I’ve seen you accomplish amazing things. What’s it going to take to motivate you to get healthy?”

Me: “Good question. I’ve lost my mojo.”

Sista: “We need to find it.”


Me: “We’ll need a big flashlight.”

And then, she gave me homework.

In an instant she found my mojo for me. She treated me like a student and I had an assignment. Oh my God. Homework! I love homework!

Then Sista Sarah had to go do normal people things like make dinner for her very sane and wonderful husband. She said she would come back later to chat with me. But when she came back to her keyboard, I told her I was very busy doing her homework assignment. I’m taking notes, using my highlighter pens, dog earring my books, reading, interviewing a bunch of people, Googling a lot of stuff. I promised Sarah I would come back an expert on myself soon. The one thing I do not ever have to research is how to find the best friend in the whole world because I have already found her.

How can you not find this funny, Sarah in a grape Halloween costume?

Recently my mother passed away and I had the heavy responsibility of planning the funeral. I felt really alone with the task. But Sarah was there. She showed up on the day as my right hand gal. She followed me around with tissues, inserting them in my hands at precisely the moment snot was going to drop. She literally swirled around me like an angel all day long, appearing at just the right time to steer me clear of potentially painful situations. She rode in the car with me behind the hearse. She sat with me as they put my mother’s casket in the ground. She put her arm around me in the cold and walked me to the car so I would not have to watch dirt spread over the vault.

We arrived home to prepare for a family get together and I told her she really didn’t need to stay, that I had gotten through the hard part. She hadn’t told me that one of her daughters had gone into labor a few hours previous and was on her way to the hospital to give birth. She had committed to me, she said. So, I raced her to the car and she made it to the hospital in time to welcome grand baby number seven. In one day, I experienced the depth of sadness, a 60th birthday, a new life and the best Sista friend a girl could ask for.

I’m working on Sista’s homework assignment. It turned into this blog.