When a voice on the phone told me Sarah had passed away this week, I couldn’t connect the words to MY Sarah. When I tried to share her words with friends, I realized MY Sarah was actually many people at different times in our lives. While the journey was too short, her life’s path has always been one with curves and challenges.

I met Sarah Jesse when we were in sixth grade. She was a shy, quiet girl with long hair and an ever-active pencil. Her sketches of Garfield and Ziggy were spot on and her importance to Hatton’s sports teams grew with every season. We were soon calling each other sisters, since she spent as much time at my house as possible. By 8^th grade, her hair was shorter, she was playing around with make-up, and she “caught the eye” of a new guy who moved into our school (as he recently told me on Facebook). But as graduation approached, Sarah was in search of a new home. My family and Sarah were willing to make her nicknames of mom and dad permanent, but one weekend visit changed that forever.

“They have an apartment in Columbia, she wears designer jeans, and they really want ME,” is the way Sarah told me about the couple who would soon become her family. David and Julia didn’t want Sarah as a babysitter for younger kids or as a beautiful baby—they wanted her as a teenager, complete with flaws and were willing to move back to North Callaway to keep her with friends. Sarah Barnes was born, and her natural brother John attended the celebration, connecting the family of her birth to the family she would share her life with. Sarah Barnes learned to play tenor sax, loved to share Cheetos, Skittles, and Mountain Dew on the couch after school, played around a little more with make-up and hair, gained self-confidence, and kept catching the eyes of the guys.

In fact, that was our (probably poorly hidden) goal on many youth retreats we attended. We never even got a phone number, let alone a date, out of one of those retreats, but the most memorable was a week-long float we shared on the Current River. Near the end of the trip, one fraught with tipped canoes in high water, Sarah shared a canoe with Jeremy, the most experienced on the trip. One curve was obscured by a massive tree, irresistible to Fourth of July fun-seekers and canoes alike. Jeremy’s expert handling of the canoe could not keep them from being pulled into a growing stack of others pushing in to the massive branches, eventually tipping them both into the water. Trapped between canoes with theirs filling fast to crush their chests, Sarah and Jeremy had no choice but to slide under. On the other side, I waited and waited for a sign of Sarah long after Jeremy struggled to catch his breath. Eventually, her orange life jacket pulled Sarah up, the same jacket that had been grabbed by each branch the current swept her through, forcing her to fight to reach the unseen surface. She was battered, fingers raw, but unwilling to give up. Sarah had to climb back into a canoe to get home, back to safety, and that is just what she did. She could even smile as we passed a spring that chilled the hulls below our feet as we neared the Jack’s Fork. As it would be so many times in the future, Sarah found the strength to meet a challenge that could have been an obstacle to someone with a weaker heart.

By the end of high school, Sarah had caught the eye of a boyfriend or two and was the only prom queen candidate I’ve ever seen with a tea length baby blue tiered dress and a walking cast! In fact, Sarah was such a beautiful teen she was asked to join a modeling agency. It was here that her love of style turned into a knowledge of how to cultivate beauty. Before, she’d been a high schooler in a small bathroom with a hot blow dryer and some blue eye shadow. While taking modeling classes, Sarah began to develop what had always been a part of her—an ability to take a walk to gather weeds from the roadside and turn it into a beautiful gift—into a future. Sarah’s love of creativity, while explored in art school, became a career when she finished cosmetology school.

It was around this same time that Sarah Barnes became Sarah Young. Our weddings were just a week apart, so Sarah could not return the favor of being my maid-of-honor as I had been hers. Imagine my shock when I turned after my vows, knowing Sarah was on a far-off beach in Hawaii, only to see her grinning at me. She had not been able to make her trip, but refused to make my final week of preparation more difficult by searching for a dress that could make her part of my wedding party. And that was Sarah too—it was hard to give Sarah a gift, because she wanted to give to you. It was hard to pay her a compliment, because her modesty made it seem undeserved. And it was not in Sarah’s nature to put anyone to work on her behalf.

While our weddings were a week apart, another important aspect of our young married lives was even closer. We shared many nights playing Hearts in Sarah’s Kingdom City home, the ladies always making sure we took the queen of spades just to keep the men happy. ‘Oh darn, I got it again?! How does that always happen?’ may have been the words we said, but it was our old sisterly silent communication that kept us able to take just enough hands to keep the guys in check. During the summer, my last in Missouri for a while, Sarah swam and rafted in our lake seemingly every day. It was a bittersweet time—bitter as I knew I’d give birth while in Maine but sweet because we spent more time together than we had in years. As our U-Haul pulled away in late July, Sarah reached into my window and whispered in my ear, “I’m having a baby too!” On February 26^th, I called Sarah to share the news of my little orange haired son’s birth only to learn she was in a hospital bed 1600 miles away holding her own little orange-haired bundle of love. To top it off, we’d both delivered by c-section! Even with the miles between us, it seemed our experiences were so similar and we couldn’t wait to get the boys together.

I’d love to say our boys grew up together, but they don’t remember the Easter we spent, the boys running through my parents’ yard in search of eggs on wobbly two-year old legs. They don’t recall New Year’s Eve 2000, a First Night celebration that would be our last chance to be together for years to come. As six-year olds slammed cars together on the floor, Sarah once again gave me a gift made by her own hands, a beautiful afghan I sleep with to this day. It was hard to find words on that night, as it is today, to express how we felt about the future.

Months later, I heard Sarah explain how she could find herself in a desperate situation. She said, “I didn’t think I deserved any better.” I know Sarah has since learned that she does deserve better. The Sarah I’ve come to know again over the past few months is one who values herself and her own worth. She was finding her smile, the one friends from North Callaway remember, an easy smile and a joyous laugh. She saw beauty in everything, especially the many shades of green at our lake, the gentle breeze on the water, and the wiggle of a fish on the line. She was searching for a way to make it in this world, be a loving daughter, and most importantly, a good mother.

Of the many sides of Sarah you may remember, I will remember fondly the fist she pounded into a glove, waiting for a line drive. I will remember Sarah biting down on her tenor sax mouthpiece in order to belt out low notes on an instrument she set out to learn when others are already giving up band (and the time we taught each other a parade song just to see if Mrs. Sperry would notice we switched instruments mid-route! Was that before or after we got a mini-vaca thanks to a band trip? I can’t remember!). I will remember tiny little Sarah behind the wheel of the giant Yellow Blazer and the thrill of beating curfew. I will remember the mischief that sparkled in those beautiful big eyes. I will remember “Shout at the Devil” as the theme song for our cruising fun—our hair only getting more into that giant 80s style as our heads banged to the beat. (I remember holding each other’s hair as the need arose, too!) I will remember laying on the beach in Galveston, even though there were only clouds above, and the sun burn we returned from spring break with anyway! I will remember the straw hat that graced my wall only because Sarah found “weeds” as she took a walk, weeds she turned into art. I will remember haircuts on the back porch, always better than in a salon. I will remember a chin held high, not out of ego but because life tested Sarah at every turn and she never let it stop her. I will remember an Easter card for my son, created with her only available art supply—beets. I will remember Sarah’s love of books and going to yard sales to find shelves to house them. I will remember a friend who turned adversity into victory, training CHAMP dogs to be in service of others. I will remember laughter and secrets, good times that always outweighed the sorrows. I will remember Sarah.