the Holy Grail of friendship

A friend of mine who I loved very dearly died on Monday night. Her name was Sarah Thomas and she was 38 years old. I have been crying and screaming and then feeling totally calm about it but what is ripping my heart apart is the thought that her daughter, 2 year-old Maggie, will never know what it feels like to be enfolded in the gentle bosom of love that her mother was; she will never know the blanket that was her mother's warmth and empathy; she will never be able to see the pure kindness and compassion that shone from her mothers eyes or hear her mellifluous laughter, sometimes seasoned with a cheeky lilt, that would engage anyone within earshot. She wasn't just a dollop of cream on a fluffy scone, or the jam in between - she was all of those but she was also zesty and tangy, cinnamon and spice - funny, pragmatic, sharp as a tack, opinionated, strong, decisive and a great conversationalist. She was someone you wanted in your midst.

I met Sarah four years ago at "Girls Lunch", a quarterly lunch that was originally set up as a social/networking opportunity but quickly morphed into an eagerly awaited date between eight or so women who fused over good food, great wine and spectacularly entertaining stories from the frontline of our respective industries. At "Girls Lunch", lunch starts at 1pm and ends in the reciprocal a.m. Our lunches are hard to leave because the company is difficult to part with.

Sarah was the Holy Grail in this circle of friends, a symbol of God's grace and the chalice from which we all shared our friendship. How fitting that it was always she who supplied the wine! Her cup runneth over in generosity of spirit and genuine care and concern for others.

I was one of the last to join this small group of wondrous women and Sarah always made sure I was included and up to speed with the latest plans. In a society where we are all self-consumed by the business, chaos, pace, demands and responsibilties of our self-imposed TO DO lists, Sarah was one of the rare few that took the time and made the effort to pick up the phone just to check in, to see how you were travelling. That was so like her - even at the lunches themselves she would make sure everyone's glass was at least half-full (literally) and having a good time. She just wanted so much for us all to enjoy the day. That was all. There was never any personal agenda with her - it was always outward, always about the group and never about her. Not in any way.

Sarah died of a massive heart attack in her sleep, without any history or candidacy for heart failure. She had one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know - pure gold - and it somehow seems not a coincidence that the very thing that gave our "girls lunch" gals the life and vitality we had as a group is the same thing that killed her. I can't go any further with that thought right now. It is too painful and it just doesn't compute. I feel a huge loss of hope in this.

I just briefly closed my eyes to check in with my heart. The image I saw was a full moon rising over the ocean. That was Sarah. That was her radiance, her brilliance, her shine. The next Full Moon is this Monday, July 26. So when you look up in that sky, and you see that smiling face within the moon, that is Sarah's light shining down on you.

Thank you Sarah, for your loving kindness, compassion, warmth, wit and humour. You will be forever loved and missed.