My Ever Dear Daughter

Two weeks from today, Sarah will be married. Yesterday I went to a brunch to celebrate Sarah and the joy she is experiencing and sharing with all of us. For the second time, in the last few months, I was asked to “share Sarah stories.” I end up telling the stories of how challenging she was to me as a baby/toddler, and some of her exploits. Those were all true stories, but reveal as much about me and my uncertainty as a parent as they reveal about her. Sarah’s always been a risk-taker, and as such, provoked a lot of anxiety in me, since I am more of a middle-of-the-roader.

Be all that as it may, I think that Sarah and I have had a close relationship over the years, and there are so many stories that I want to tell about Sarah but can’t, because I know I’ll just get choked up.

There are the stories of Sarah the giver. She has made her exquisite quilts for her friends’ babies and quilts for her friends as wedding presents. She has made quilts for me, and Todd and Kat, and Todd. She made a quilted wall-hanging for me for my 60th birthday which touched me so much, because she captured a place (Eckels cottage at Lake Winnisquam) which has had lots of great memories for me and embroidered on it a part of a poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” by Wendell Berry, which revealed her deep knowledge of who I am.

She has knitted sweaters for all of her friends’ babies and for her beloved niece and nephew. She has knitted (and sometimes re-knitted) sweaters for me. She has made countless pumpkin and fruit hats for her friends’ babies. She has knitted sweaters for herself and her grandmother.

Sarah has been the friend everyone could call on to help move, to help pack up, to drive to a colonoscopy and stand by while brain surgery was being performed. She was the person to drive me to my skin cancer surgery, neither of us having any idea that at the end of the day, I would walk out of the hospital looking like Frankenstein. She stayed for several days, changing a bandage I couldn’t bear to touch. More than once she has been Sarah the caregiver. Most recently, coming immediately when my dad was dying, giving up a conference to be with me and help me get moved out of my classroom as I started retirement and dealt with dad’s death and supported my mom.

There’s Sarah the helper – the one who has shown up and mowed the lawn, planted flowers, made dinner, cleaned closets and encouraged me to get rid of the junk of my life which has a tendency to overwhelm me. She’s the one who has painted bedrooms and bathrooms and hallways with me. She’s the one who’s come to visit grammie and take her for a ride when I’m gone.

There’s Sarah the social activist who worries that what she’s done with her life hasn’t done enough to solve the world’s ills, though she has participated in benefit concerts and in her own recitals has raised money for battered women and for Greg Mortenson’s schools for girls. Through her own work ethic and patient teaching of voice lessons to students of all abilities and backgrounds, she has given the gifts of self confidence to those who might never have performed before. She has, herself, “made a joyful noise” and helped others to do the same, bringing beauty and harmony into a broken world.

There’s Sarah the writer, who has several novels in the drawer, and has been an excellent reader for me, and in one case a collaborator with me on an as yet unpublished gem!! Perhaps now that her life has taken a turn for the happier, she will be able to finish some of those “Chick Lit” stories which have featured young women seeking a good relationship!

There’s Sarah the reader. We’ve long traded books and recommendations for books, and have roughly the same taste in books. Sarah has kept a reading journal for years, something I have only done sporadically. Now she has vowed to get books from the library instead of buying them, we don’t trade books as much, but the recommendations just keep coming!!

This, though a long blog entry, just scratches of the surface of all the things I love about Sarah. These are the things I wish I could say when suddenly on the spot for “stories” about Sarah. No one will be happier than I on June 20th, when Sarah marries Ben. It’s her time to shine, and to share her gifts and talents, her loyalty and her love with someone who will love and cherish her.