I’m so
excited to introduce you to another Everly’s Angels Foundation board member, Sarah,
who will be covering Marketing and Media Relations. She is married to a funny and supportive guy and
a good friend of ours, Dan. She is also the
proud mama of three of the most caring boys I have ever met…all with hearts the
size of Texas!
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| Here's Sarah with Josh and Jonathan...just missing Dan and Nathan. |
We have been
friends for a number of years and met when our lives intersected in the
homeschool community. She and I, along with
the visionary Traci behind our homeschool group (SHINE), worked side by side as
leaders in the group. Our friendship
really blossomed during this special time.
Our
friendship, however, really reached a new level over the last year and a
half. Though she has never experienced
child loss, she was able to touch family in a most exceptional way. I’ll share more in a sec. But it was not only her heart that so struck
us. In fact, it was that her entire
family…her husband, her three boys (elementary, middle & high school, I
might add!!) and even her mom played a pivotal roll in intimately walking side
by side with our family.
They were
prayer warriors for us beginning during the pregnancy…keeping us lifted at all
times. Then when we came home from the
hospital and we were so careful with not taking Everly into closed in spaces,
it was Sarah and her boys who literally saved my sanity. Always having been an outgoing person,
staying in was a change for me. It was
she who suggested getting together at our family’s favorite hike spot. It was a win win idea…Everly (and all of us)
get fresh air and was safe, we each got some exercise and I got some girl time
while the boys walk with their buddies.
What started
as one Saturday turned into a regular routine of meeting for our morning hikes
together…all 8 of us! Her boys would
help my boys get all of Everly’s medical equipment unloaded, set, then reloaded
week after week after week. They were
patient as we had to work around her feed schedule (we didn’t yet use the feed
pump so I had to manually push the syringe), the many stops and starts as her
machines went off and the obsession we had with sanitizing and personal distance
for fear of any illness. Never once
complaining, this family literally walked sided by side with us.
When the
weather turned too hot to hike, we continued our weekly visits and instead went
to our neighborhood pool, quite a trek from their house, I might add. Again, never once complaining, and always so
cheerful and exuberant to be with us and to see Everly each Saturday
morning. When their family had a
conflict on a Saturday, they were quick to make arrangements to instead meet us
on Friday. At the end, all the boys were
a little over the pool thing, but due to the extreme Florida heat, options for
us meeting safely with Everly were limited.
However, no complaints ever were voiced.
You could see the love they all had for Everly, each week as they gazed
at her and prayed for her.
Week after
week, this was our routine. For more
than six months straight, Sarah and her boys, Jonathan, Josh and Nathan would
faithfully give of their time to meet us.
Sarah was
who I could depend on to be a listening ear when things were tough. It was Sarah who I could call or text at
ridiculously late hours when the pangs of grief stung, raw and painful. She visited me in the wee hours of the night
time after time while Everly and I were in the hospital in the winter. She brought fries (#shhhdonttell), tea and
her listening ear on many difficult evenings.
She would sit and let Everly squeeze her finger, hunched over and gowned
up, so that I could eat.
Her desire
to be the hands and feet of Jesus was and is so evident in her life and how she
lives and in her kind and loving boys.
She and her husband are raising boys who deeply care for others and have
empathy for the plight of their friends. For that, I am thankful and grateful and very
much in awe. If we could all be like
them, the world would be a better place.
I’m so proud
to call Sarah one of my best friends. I’m
so glad that she (and her family) will be continuing with us as we keep Everly’s
memory alive. I’m so honored to call
them friends.
