Dear Sarah

(Pictures, from left to right: Janet Clark Hall formal, last winter, in Edmonton,this past Christmas (bottom), courtesy of Colbert, and during Junior High School, by Sally Huang.)


Dear Sarah,

Today would have been your 21st birthday. Instead, it is the five month aniversary of your death. I miss you. When I found out you'd died, I yelled back into the phone "Sahrah's dead!?!" because that's what I thought you did when somebody told you that one of your oldest friends had died. That night capped off the worst week of my life. Since you were already away in Australia, it wasn't so much of a shock to not see you every day, but knowing that I would never see you again was difficult to fathom. It still is. Listening to people talking about you is bittersweet. You were such a good friend to everybody. You were kind and sparkly and vivacious and gentle and a whole bunch of other things, but just saying that seems inadequate. I wish more people had gotten to know you. You were a gift to the world. I wish you'd gotten to finish everything you wanted to, gotten your dream job, a family of your own. You deserved that. Even though I wonder horrible things, like, did you see the truck coming, and, if you did, did you know that you were about to die, I'm glad you didn't suffer. If there was some reason for this happening, I'll probably never know it. But, as Kathleen said, while it was, it was so good.

With love,
-Janita