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01/16/2006: "Follow your dreams"
If ever there is a conclusion to a person’s life on this earth it is probably the funeral. I attended Sarah’s funeral today but I couldn’t bring myself to think this was goodbye because there was so much life to celebrate and so many people there. It didn’t feel like a goodbye and although it was suggested we should never try to think what a loved one or friend would think, it felt like the sort of finale Sarah would have liked.
In her final scene on this earth, her entrance was to Carmina Burana, the readings were interspersed with The Hothouse Flowers (Don’t Go) the Foo Fighters (Learning to Fly) and then she left us with a finale of Blue Oyster Cult (Don’t Fear the Reaper). It was a celebration of her life as well as a parting and she made sure the music she chose wasn’t going to have us all weeping into our handkerchiefs……although…
I said I would write something about Sarah when I felt more calm. Today I don’t feel any less upset than when I realised she didn’t have long to live or when she died but I feel today is when I should write about her. Today is her day and I can't stop thinking about her. The realisation that a short life can be taken in such a cruel and short space of time is not easy. The loss of close family seems different to this loss. I have never known anyone I would call a friend who has died before and never anyone who has lived in the same city as me and never anyone younger than me. It is a time of new, sad experiences. In some ways it seems fitting. Sarah was always up for new adventures, new experiences. She couldn’t have picked a bigger one to do before her friends and I like to think she’s just gone on ahead to get the drinks in.
I first met Sarah when she walked into my office as my new temp. It was the 11th June 2001 and I have never been so relieved to see anyone. My first impressions were a little mixed as I am sure her’s were. She was confident, outgoing and seemed so sure of herself. All wonderful qualities for a temp but daunting ones for me as a first time boss of anyone! I learned later that this was one of the first temp jobs she had done after being made redundant. She soon showed how talented and how capable she was and I still maintain she is the best temp who ever worked for me. It didn’t take long to realise that she was so much more warm and friendly than that first impression and that she was a deeply caring person, fragile and at times lonely.
We soon found out we shared similar tastes in music, places we liked to visit, the highlands, islands and many thoughts in general. We worked together all summer through a really stressful time which I think helped forge a bond and then by cruel fate I wasn’t allowed to give her the job she so deserved, so she moved to another area.
We stayed in touch, chatted online most days and went out after work occasionally. She was always so busy, with three jobs and lots of different groups of friends it was difficult to get a look in but now and again we’d share a quiet drink and swap secrets. Sarah was having dinner with us the day SED redecorated her bedroom with newspaper! I wasn’t allowed to go and look at it but SED allowed Sarah to see it. I’m glad she was there – I might have had a fit! At Christmas time she got us tickets for the pantomime. At work, she’d bring birthday presents and home baking. Her gingerbread was wonderful.
Again fate stepped in and I was able to offer her ‘her’ job back with me, where as she said herself, “I should have been all along”. I think she liked working with us – most of the time! She was there when I really needed to pass over the reigns to someone else in a time of personal crisis. That was Sarah all over, dependable, helpful, loyal. I was able to deal with my own problems knowing that at work, Sarah was coping. We went to a couple of Jayhawks concerts together and Laura Cantrell and I wish I’d been able to go to more of the gigs she went to. She loved music and dancing. Her 30th, fairy themed party was wonderful and she looked truly beautiful dancing around the hall with her wings. I don’t count myself as one of Sarah’s close friends, she was more like the little sister I never had and I think I was always conscious that as her ‘supposed’ boss, I needed to keep a little distance. I regret that now. But I kept up to date with all her thoughts and adventures through her weblog and later her livejournal.
When the prospect of a promotion arose a year or so later, I persuaded her she should really go for it. Her skills and talent were not being used to the best and there was the question of more money. It was time for her to move on. She got the job and again left us – this was another first, Sarah was the only employee who’s had two leaving do’s from the same department. I missed her expertise, her company and her just ‘being there’ every day.
I hadn’t seen so much of her as the new job was on a different campus and there were lots of new colleagues to get to know. But we chatted on-line and kept in touch. We gave each other encouragement and support when things at work got bad. We provided each other with mutual sympathy when I had a frozen shoulder and she had the pain in her shoulder which she told me only a few weeks ago when she was in hospital, that had been the pain of the undiagnosed lung cancer. We talked online often about her pain and I tried to help her think of ways of getting a proper referral from her GP. She was even going to go for a private MRI scan.
But the pain continued and Sarah got so fed up talking about it, living with it. She’d been off work for a couple of days when I texted her and asked if she was ok. She’d been signed off until the end of the year! I was shocked when the next I heard was that she’d been rushed into A&E mid December. Sadly she spent Christmas, New Year and her 32nd Birthday in hospital. I visited her a few times and was so shocked the first time as she had lost so much weight. There are all the thoughts that if I’d seen her earlier, seen how ill she looked, I would have rushed her to hospital myself but every one has perfect retrospective vision. Visiting in hospital and finally the hospice was difficult but it was a time to realise that she had come to terms with her illness and was preparing to leave us all. Close friends say she was overwhelmed by the support of everyone.
Tonight I’m going to her wake. Like many of the people there, I won’t know many people. Sarah touched so many people’s lives and some only online but she made a huge difference to those she knew. She often went to things alone and I remember asking her how she managed to do that, because I’ve never been able to go along to many things on my own. She told me it was hard and it never got any easier, I always was in awe of her for that. She told me that when she was five she had a birthday party and no-one showed up. I think she lived the rest of her life making up for that, making sure it would never happen again. I don’t think it ever did. I can't imagine it. The little chapel today was so busy, people were standing. So tonight I’m going to be brave and I will go on my own, because I know she would have. It will be a night to toast her and speak to her family, close friends, people who knew her well, who didn’t know her well, and maybe even some who never met her in real life. She was different things to different people. But all will be there for her. To Sarah, sleep well and follow your dreams. I miss you.
