my hero

there are so many people in my life that i admire. the vast majority of them are much older than me. but there is one person that is my age that i have always admired. her name is sarah.

sarah and i were teammates, classmates, and friends. she was such a well rounded person. she was incredibly intelligent. she was an amazing athlete. she was the most caring and generous friend. but most importantly she was an awesome christian. she was never afraid to show or share her faith...something that is rare these days.

sarah and i had many classes together. in fact we were partners in our very first cat disection. we had so much fun cutting up that cat! i will never forget those three weeks of our senior year. the entire year we would make bets as to who would out score the other on our anatomy tests. it is amazing how much of a motivator a bet can be. ironically at the end of the year we had tied. that was fine with both of us, because it had pushed us to be better students. although i don't think that the rest of the class liked our competition very much...it blew their curve!

sarah and i were teammates for years. she was so athletic. she gave everything that she had every night and in every practice. 110% doesn't even come close to the effort that sarah gave. she was always the first to practice and always the last to leave. and she always encouraged everyone...she would push us harder than the coaches sometimes!

sarah was such a happy and outgoing person. she never had a bad day. if you were having a bad day she would do everything in her power to change it. she cared so much for everyone around her. everyone. her compassion for others was genuine and real. it didn't matter who you were, or what clique you belonged to....sarah was everyone's friend.

friday afternoon i was told that sarah had died.

all i could think was that there is no way that it could be true. surely it was a rumor that was totally false. but, it wasn't. she was gone. there were no words.

it is such a different feeling to lose a relative. when someone that is your age, someone that you knew, someone that you had spent thousands of hours with, passes away it makes you realize your own mortality. it doesn't seem right. it shouldn't happen to young adults. it shouldn't happen to somone who has so much to offer the world. it just shouldn't happen.

i will miss sarah so much. but i am so glad to have had her in my life for the time that i did. she inspires me to be a better person. i will always remember sarah as one of my hero's.

may God rest her soul.

xoxo ns