I have had great difficulty posting about Sarah's untimely death. This was the first day I haven't experienced bouts of tears. They want to come now, but I am trying to hold them back, I am failing.
I have come to realize today that our Sarah would not want us still in tears and lamenting her death. It is time to celebrate her life, family and the passion and strength that defined her. She never complained about her illness and instead wished to sometimes focus here, with her DIS friends, on the things that brought her happiness. Perhaps, at times, it served as a much needed distraction for her, but ultimately, Walt Disney World and the DIS was her 'happy place.' How fortunate all of us are to have been a part of her happy place! She may be gone, but her friendship will remain with so many forever. That can never be taken away.
Her last text to me was on Christmas and she gave no indication that she had taken a turn for the worse. She wanted to celebrate the joy of the season, and not focus on that which she had no control over. She instead focused on her next trip, her family, our next trip, our successes, our failures. She was a mother, a sister and a friend to us all. My mother passed from cancer at the same age as Sarah and I don't have any siblings, so truly, Sarah was all of those things to me.
We can choose to focus on that which has been taken away from us far, far too soon or we can now choose to focus on that which has been given to us and remains - the part of us touched by Sarah's wit, wisdom, pragmatism, patience, warmth and shared joy of Disney World. Thank you dear Jon, Stephanie and Cynthia for sharing Sarah with us and thank you to her parents as well.
I don't know to whom to attribute this quotation, but I find it fitting:
What moves through us is a silence, a quiet sadness, a longing for one more day, one more word, one more touch, we may not understand why you left this earth so soon, or why you left before we were ready to say good-bye, but little by little, we begin to remember not just that you died, but that you lived. And that your life gave us memories too beautiful to forget.