I've been writing stories and making up characters for as long as I can remember, and a lot of those stories were co-written with my friends. Especially Sarah. She had advice for any plot twist, and could write out of any hole. She always had suggestions to make my characters more real and more interesting. She was excellent with action scenes, and she had the best sense of humour--she especially loved dry wit.

We met in 8th Grade through another of our friends, and we've been best friends ever since. She's been through everything, her parents' divorce, her mom and her brother's sickness, moving a lot, and her own sickness, but she never complained or let it get her down. She was also nearly fluent in Japanese, and enjoyed drawing. She even spent a few months in Japan to study! She was a very hard worker, too, (although one has to be to master Japanese!) and she loved learning. She had two jobs in addition to a full course load at the community college. She would often scold me for procrastinating my homework.

She died July 31st this year, of a very very aggressive form of cancer. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen, going to the funeral of one of my best friends. It's not supposed to work that way! She's supposed to go to med school and become the best oncologist the world has ever known. I know, I know, I really don't know how it's supposed to work. But I always thought that was a nice plan. Sarah would've been a great doctor because she'd been through it twice.

The incredibly incredibly cool thing about it (the only cool thing) is she was baptized AND received Communion at the Hospital in Seattle. That made me so proud. And I can only hope that one day, Sarah can look down from Heaven and be proud of me.