My Dear Beautiful Friend

Yesterday I had to say goodbye to what has been my very best friend for the last 4 years. We've been with each other through lots of laughter and not a few tears.
We first met actually in speech class. Apparently I was the least scary looking person in my class... so my soon to be best friend decided to sit beside me. (in her defense though, there were a lot of scary people in our class). We got to talking after class and met a mutual friend of ours, then were pleasantly surprised to find out that the other was a Christian and were doing classes for nursing school. I invited her for lunch one day. We went to what turned out later to be a gay bar by night... I swear I didn't know! I introduced her to the lovely "Roy Rogers" which is just grenadine and Pepsi (lovely!). A few VERY scary rides in her dilapidated Geo, lots of lunch dates, and a few nights of bowling later... by the end of the semester we were fast friends! (Apparently when I give speeches I use my hands weirdly curled into a "claw" to express myself, while she turns completely blotchy all over her neck! lol) I met her bros and argued with her boyfriend over the phone. Went sledding behind a truck on a car hood, caught a couple movies, and discovered that we both love shopping!
We decided to take a class together in the spring (micobiology, yay!). She got a Nissan 240 (which is essentially the sportier version of my Nissan 200SX) to replace that awful Geo I remember lots of racing our cars between Ogden and our night class in JC. Many more days making study guides for tests and meeting for supper before or after class.
Then something awful happened. One morning I woke to a message on my phone from her brother. There had been an accident. I thought it had happened the night before on the way home from class and I kicked myself repeatedly for losing her on the interstate and not making sure she turned off okay. When I got the hospital, I found out it had happened that morning as she was on her way to work. She had been adjusting her radio, talking on the phone and veered off the road, when she swung back to compensate, her car hit gravel and spun out of control, flipping off the other side of the road, rolling, knocking her out the sunroof and then rolling over the top of her before coming to a stop in the median.
She was in a neck and full back brace, not very lucid, and to add insult to injury got a ticket for not wearing her seat belt served by the PD to her lying flat on her back in the ER. I didn't even know all of her family then and I sat on the other side of the waiting room listening for news of her from the group of people from her church. I was shocked and a little honored that she asked for me.
She broke her back in a couple places, but nothing was damaged to her spinal cord amazingly. Really it was a miracle. I saw the car later and not wearing a seat belt probably saved her life. I stayed with her those first few frightening nights in the hospital and I remember being so scared and feeling so helpless. Being a nurse, but unable to do anything to ease her pain. Even the best pain killers couldn't ease it enough for her to be able to sleep comfortably. I lay awake on the skinny sliver of a couch for the longest time praying that she would be able to sleep; that God would ease her pain enough for at least that. We fell asleep holding hands. Or rather I fell asleep and she slipped into her medicated haze.
I'll never forget that late night conversation after everyone else had gone home, crying cause she didn't know if she would ever be able to walk right or bear children. I told her I would carry her children if she found out she couldn't. It was a bizarre thing to offer at a time like that and possibly slightly creepy, but I truly meant it. I would.
Finally she was well enough to go home. She could sit up for only a little while at first, and even that was painful. I think I was out at her house almost every day helping out, bringing her food, or trying to entertain her. I considered skipping my plans to go to Africa that summer.
Her brothers, and then boyfriend all took turns staying with her. We got in all kinds of trouble: wrestling and chasing each other around the house, smuggling her to the lake reclined in my car, all of us carrying her all over, eating too many fudge bars... I would leave to go in to work or school, and then rush back or text her to see what she wanted me to bring her the next day.
Her and I talked so much at the start of that summer, we became practically inseparable. She was I think the only person that let me be really excited about Africa, and put up with my moods when I would come back all messed up and with my culture shock.
I went with her boyfriend and his best friend to pick out the ring when he proposed. And I was so honored and proud to stand by the two of them as they exchanged vows atop a hill over the lake where we had spent so many beautiful afternoons swimming, nevermind the fact that I boiled my shoulders in my strapless dress and could not move for the next 2 days without intense blistering pain. :)
She was there for me every time I got my heart broke, and she was there when I finally found a love that was true. My only regret is that I couldn't always be there exactly when she needed me. She stayed with me after Kala died. I can't count how many times we prayed for each other. Best memories will always include her teaching me "how to hug a boyfriend"... Pizzanos and our pasta comfort food... that one incident that we don't talk about... crying together... yelling at each other for not having enough self esteem to believe that we are each beautiful... fighting over which one of us was the "man" in our relationship... "we're biters!"... sledding, swimming, and horseback riding... drinks and movies... her getting me hooked on tanning... that moment that I realized how much she had been through, and what a lovely woman she was to have lived through that and to still love with such veracity... sharing shopping, big words, and mountain dew...
When she went to visit her husband's family over Christmas, I just knew. She didn't have to tell me. They were moving there when her husband was done with school. It was hard to take. We both knew that our relationship wouldn't keep on going the way it was. I was supposed to be running off to Africa. Now she was leaving before me.
I can't tell you how a little part of my heart feels like its missing. We both knew the goodbye was coming and we avoided talking about it that last evening together. Neither of us cried, but the pain still showed in both of our eyes. She kept looking at me with that look that said she was wanting some assurance that I would be okay, and I couldn't let her down, so I bravely smiled and waved. Alone in my car, the tears didn't stop all the 30 min drive home. I even wrote a country western ballad singing loud with the wind from the interstate whipping away my tears.
She will never be replaced in my heart. I have trouble believing anyone could ever understand me the way that she does.

Somehow along the last 4 years we became sisters instead of friends.