Sometimes life is really flippin' hard. This past few weeks have been really hard all mixed up with really sweet at the same time, which is hard to discuss sometimes. I need to share the worst part, so that I can get on with the good, sweet, happy parts. This post is going to be really long.
(This is Sarah and her family. Isaac, Rob, Sarah, Eli, and Jonah)
Many of my friends and readers are also friends with my childhood friend Sarah, (formerly known as The Domestic Goddess).
Sarah and I met when we were 9. School had already started when I moved in across the field of our neighborhood Jr. High from Sarah. I don't actually remember the day we decided to become friends.
I only know that it was permanent once the decision was made.
We were fast friends with pretty different family lives and extremely similar dispositions and interests. We both loved to bake and read and talk about boys, so that's what we did. We'd call each other and arrange to meet halfway across the Jr. High field that separated our houses. She'd come over to my house and help me weed our massive garden or finish my chores, and I'd escape to her quiet house to hide in her bedroom and talk about whatever. Sometimes we would have a little spending money, so we'd walk to a local candy store and buy a piece of chocolate, or hit the swimming pool on her side of the field.
Pretty soon we were headed to Jr. High. We wrote a lot of notes in Jr. High. Mostly about boys and not about baking or reading. Maybe about how much we both hated P.E. and how I hated math. I'm guessing we discussed how handsome our Social Studies teacher was and how mean the choir teacher was. We still met halfway across the Jr. High field to discuss certain social tragedies or crushes. We walked that field more times than I could possibly count between 4th and 9th grade.
We had different friends in high school and maybe didn't hang out as much any more, but Sarah was still my friend and we still talked about boys and social tragedies whenever we could. We also talked about God and prayer and social injustices. Then a family move my senior year took me across town and to another high school. We rarely saw each other, but we still kept in contact. I'm sure we still shared the dirt on our crushes and she definitely kept me in the loop on all the social tragedies I was missing.
Sarah went to Indiana for college and I stayed in Idaho, but my life changed dramatically. For awhile there we didn't talk much, and we even had a falling out of sorts right about the time we both got married. During the early years of our marriages we weren't in close contact. I thought about Sarah all the time. There were several occasions when I would wake up in the middle of the night with a tear soaked pillow, wondering what had happened to my best girlhood friend. I missed her and hated our separation, but we lived so far away from each other that I didn't know how to fix the relationship.
Fast forward a few years and we both had babies. I was visiting the grocery store in the neighborhood where we grew up and I ran into Sarah's Dad. He told me she had just given birth to her first son, Jonah, and she would be coming to town soon and I should give her a call and get together with her. I blurted out that I really missed Sarah and made a big fool of myself telling him that I wasn't sure she would want to see me. He looked at me and said unflinchingly, "Heather, call her". So I did. And it was like we'd never been apart. We laughed over our silly grievance and talked about how that time apart was just a necessary phase of growing up.
Sarah and I were always meant to be friends. We were meant to carry each other and lift each other up with life was flippin hard. To laugh and share so much joy as we raise our families together. To encourage each other when mothering is exhausting and inspire each other to be better.
We still live far apart, but thanks to our blogs and her visits back home, we get to know each other anyway. We are privileged to maintain our girlhood friendship, and I am constantly inspired by her devotion to her children.
Many people love Sarah.
Many other women gain strength from her and call her friend.
So imagine the rally of love that burst into flame on June 3, 2011 when Sarah posted a message on facebook telling us that she was headed to Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis to meet her 5 year old son who was being transported by helicopter for a brain tumor.
When I read the words I stopped breathing.
My body froze and my head started humming. A loud, intense buzz that left me positively dumbfounded.
(This is Sarah and her family. Isaac, Rob, Sarah, Eli, and Jonah)Many of my friends and readers are also friends with my childhood friend Sarah, (formerly known as The Domestic Goddess).
Sarah and I met when we were 9. School had already started when I moved in across the field of our neighborhood Jr. High from Sarah. I don't actually remember the day we decided to become friends.
I only know that it was permanent once the decision was made.
We were fast friends with pretty different family lives and extremely similar dispositions and interests. We both loved to bake and read and talk about boys, so that's what we did. We'd call each other and arrange to meet halfway across the Jr. High field that separated our houses. She'd come over to my house and help me weed our massive garden or finish my chores, and I'd escape to her quiet house to hide in her bedroom and talk about whatever. Sometimes we would have a little spending money, so we'd walk to a local candy store and buy a piece of chocolate, or hit the swimming pool on her side of the field.
Pretty soon we were headed to Jr. High. We wrote a lot of notes in Jr. High. Mostly about boys and not about baking or reading. Maybe about how much we both hated P.E. and how I hated math. I'm guessing we discussed how handsome our Social Studies teacher was and how mean the choir teacher was. We still met halfway across the Jr. High field to discuss certain social tragedies or crushes. We walked that field more times than I could possibly count between 4th and 9th grade.
We had different friends in high school and maybe didn't hang out as much any more, but Sarah was still my friend and we still talked about boys and social tragedies whenever we could. We also talked about God and prayer and social injustices. Then a family move my senior year took me across town and to another high school. We rarely saw each other, but we still kept in contact. I'm sure we still shared the dirt on our crushes and she definitely kept me in the loop on all the social tragedies I was missing.
Sarah went to Indiana for college and I stayed in Idaho, but my life changed dramatically. For awhile there we didn't talk much, and we even had a falling out of sorts right about the time we both got married. During the early years of our marriages we weren't in close contact. I thought about Sarah all the time. There were several occasions when I would wake up in the middle of the night with a tear soaked pillow, wondering what had happened to my best girlhood friend. I missed her and hated our separation, but we lived so far away from each other that I didn't know how to fix the relationship.
Fast forward a few years and we both had babies. I was visiting the grocery store in the neighborhood where we grew up and I ran into Sarah's Dad. He told me she had just given birth to her first son, Jonah, and she would be coming to town soon and I should give her a call and get together with her. I blurted out that I really missed Sarah and made a big fool of myself telling him that I wasn't sure she would want to see me. He looked at me and said unflinchingly, "Heather, call her". So I did. And it was like we'd never been apart. We laughed over our silly grievance and talked about how that time apart was just a necessary phase of growing up.
Sarah and I were always meant to be friends. We were meant to carry each other and lift each other up with life was flippin hard. To laugh and share so much joy as we raise our families together. To encourage each other when mothering is exhausting and inspire each other to be better.
We still live far apart, but thanks to our blogs and her visits back home, we get to know each other anyway. We are privileged to maintain our girlhood friendship, and I am constantly inspired by her devotion to her children.
Many people love Sarah.
Many other women gain strength from her and call her friend.
So imagine the rally of love that burst into flame on June 3, 2011 when Sarah posted a message on facebook telling us that she was headed to Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis to meet her 5 year old son who was being transported by helicopter for a brain tumor.
When I read the words I stopped breathing.
My body froze and my head started humming. A loud, intense buzz that left me positively dumbfounded.
A BRAIN TUMOR is not something that happens in my world. It's not something I or anyone I know has to deal with. This won't end up to be what they think it is.
This. is. not. happening.
And then tears.
More tears and sadness than I've ever felt.
I read the Caring Bridge Journal updates with fervor and urgency, hoping and praying that there would be some tragic mistake and the horror of this diagnosis would just go away.
Sadly, this diagnosis is not going away. Yet. The brain tumor was safely removed, but it was found to be cancerous.
Little Isaac has brain cancer and I cannot fix this or make it go away. I cannot take the pain and suffering from my friend, and she cannot take it from her family. The one thing in this world every mother fears the most is happening to my friend, and I cannot come to terms with it.
This sadness is more than anyone should have to bear, and yet it is happening.
So, underneath the joy of holding my new niece, hanging with my sisters, watching my girls play with their cousins, running my first 10K, celebrating the end of another school year, another year of marriage, and watching my baby turn 9...is this sadness. I know it is not expected. I know that I am worth more to my friend if I am continuing to live life and nurture my family.
But I am deeply rocked by this tragedy. In the past 2 weeks I have felt sad, angry, terrified, hopeful, hopeless, confused and even happy all at once.
Now I am getting myself to the place of empowerment. I am building up an army of resources so that I can help Sarah find her way back from the Hell that is her reality. I'm flexing my creative muscles so that I can give joy and hope and strength and more love than my dear friend can stand. I'm feeling every feeling as it comes and hoping, hoping, hoping that this story ends the way I want it to end. And when it does we are going to meet in that Jr. High field and tell our kids how we met, and why we are bonded for life. We might even have to pull out some of those old Jr. High notes and talk about the social tragedies we endured.
My, oh my. How life seemed complex when we were 9, 12, 16, 21.
This. is. not. happening.
And then tears.
More tears and sadness than I've ever felt.
I read the Caring Bridge Journal updates with fervor and urgency, hoping and praying that there would be some tragic mistake and the horror of this diagnosis would just go away.
Sadly, this diagnosis is not going away. Yet. The brain tumor was safely removed, but it was found to be cancerous.
Little Isaac has brain cancer and I cannot fix this or make it go away. I cannot take the pain and suffering from my friend, and she cannot take it from her family. The one thing in this world every mother fears the most is happening to my friend, and I cannot come to terms with it.
This sadness is more than anyone should have to bear, and yet it is happening.
So, underneath the joy of holding my new niece, hanging with my sisters, watching my girls play with their cousins, running my first 10K, celebrating the end of another school year, another year of marriage, and watching my baby turn 9...is this sadness. I know it is not expected. I know that I am worth more to my friend if I am continuing to live life and nurture my family.
But I am deeply rocked by this tragedy. In the past 2 weeks I have felt sad, angry, terrified, hopeful, hopeless, confused and even happy all at once.
Now I am getting myself to the place of empowerment. I am building up an army of resources so that I can help Sarah find her way back from the Hell that is her reality. I'm flexing my creative muscles so that I can give joy and hope and strength and more love than my dear friend can stand. I'm feeling every feeling as it comes and hoping, hoping, hoping that this story ends the way I want it to end. And when it does we are going to meet in that Jr. High field and tell our kids how we met, and why we are bonded for life. We might even have to pull out some of those old Jr. High notes and talk about the social tragedies we endured.
My, oh my. How life seemed complex when we were 9, 12, 16, 21.
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6 comments:
Oh, Heather. My heart goes out to you, to Sarah, to her son, to her family. You will all be in my thoughts and prayers. I wish I had words of wisdom or encouragement. All I have is a big virtual hug and a willing ear any time at all you need it.
Much love, Brenda
"Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver but the other gold." Love you.
This is beautifully written. Thanks for sharing. It's neat for me to read the story of your friendship with Sarah.
This has definitely been a world-shaking, heart-wrenching, perspective-changing experience, even for those of us caring from a distance.
My heart is breaking. I have no words except that I will be praying for you all.
I love reading the story of your friendship with Sarah. Although my friendship with Sarah is neither as old nor as deep, I've been obsessively checking CaringBridge, praying and hoping for healing more than I've ever been before.
Beautiful. Beautiful post. Your care and love and concern shines through in every word. You are an incredible friend and Sarah is so lucky to have you. I am hoping and praying for her and little Issac...
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