From the Freshman to the Senior

We spent another morning in the Doctor's office. Robert and Hayden both with pink eye, Hayden with another double ear infection. After five weeks of illness, we were down in the dumps.

I got a call from one of my oldest friends, Sarah today. When I asked how her life was, she said, "adventurous". That right there life breathed back to my heart. Due to this marvelous blog, you hear everything about my life, but I don't hear much from yours (meaning all of you who read this). I asked what was happening and she told me the greatest news that she was 16 weeks pregnant. Now, this normally is good news, but for Sarah and her husband Paul, this news has been long coming. It has been a heartbreaking, challenging and very long road. This new immediately brought me to tears and seeing the genuine smile across Robert's face as I told him, warmed life back in to my soul.

The story between Sarah and I could be a novel. We met when I was going in to my freshman year of high school and Sarah was about to start her senior year. Her house one away from our cottage and meeting her was by chance as I actually thought her brother was the hottest thing I'd ever seen. Richie, my brother and Eric, her brother, became friends and one short week later Richie asked if Eric could come stay with us in our home town. Their parents agreed only if his older sister, Sarah, would come too. I did know her from anyone. That four days, sealed our life long friendship. Though Eric and Richie eventually grew apart, Sarah and I stayed strong. When the summers came to a close, we would write each other weekly letters and told about our daily lives. When summers came back, every weekend would be spent beside Sarah's side.

Sarah and I are complete opposites. She was always kind, generous and "good". I was adventurous and a little wild. I would spend hours sitting on the diving dock with her telling her talking about what I was doing. Her eyes would widen, but she never judged, never told me what I should and should not do, she just listened. She appreciated each part of me unconditionally and loved me for who I was. I learned so much from her, from getting my first under age driving lesson in her car to most important, loving and enjoying people for just who they are, no matter what.

Now, just shy of being friends of 20 years, I still listen to her and wonder how can someone be that genuinely good and kind? How is that possible? I think it comes from her parents and their lives. As a result of many summers by Sarah's side, her family became my own. When Sarah was in my wedding, she said that her mother and father would be attending. Sarah's father, who was paralyzed in a hunting accident 20 years prior, would be making the 12 hour drive down to attend, my heart swelled. When she later told me that this would be the first trip outside of the state of Michigan since the accident, I lost it and cried. To be loved and genuinely cared about, to be given a friendship with a person and their family, is God's work.

Now, to know that this wonderful person and her family will experience a baby, to me, is one of the greatest gifts from God. It snaps you back in to reality that no matter how stressed out you are, how sick your own child and family is, each second of it, no matter how good or bad, truly is a gift from God.

Sarah and Paul, my heart swells with this wonderful news. I know you will enjoy each second of it and raise a child who will change a life, as you have changed mine. I love you.