These last few days have left me in a bit of a funk. This stems from the fact that one of my best friends, Sarah Lanthier, recently passed away, on Friday, December 17.
Sarah and I had a wonderful relationship. We first met through my Today’s Special Web site back in 1997. She found it, liked what she saw, and contacted me. I replied, and we ended up talking extensively about Today’s Special through Email correspondence. Then our conversations branched off into other things. Then we had a phone conversation, where we got to talk with each other in “real time” for the first time. We did that and Email for the longest time, and also later adding ICQ for real-time conversations online. And all the time, we became so much closer, and even discussed meeting up one day.
And then in August 1999, we did! We arranged to meet in Toronto, where we stayed in the same hotel (the Delta Chelsea), and visited “The Store” from Today’s Special together. We had a lot of fun. Here’s a picture of us from that trip:
More about that trip can be found in the Canada Trip section of Odds and Ends.
Since our trip, we continued our conversations via ICQ and the phone. We learned so much about each other. Sarah was someone I could talk to about just about anything, and I’m sure she felt the same way about me.
Sarah was someone I would consider to really be one of my best friends. Really and truly, we were like two peas in a pod, even though she lived in Canada, and I lived in the United States.
She may now be gone, but she will certainly not be forgotten. I will never forget the many moments we spent talking on the phone, and all the times we talked over ICQ and AIM. And the wonderful four days we spent in Toronto, where we got to meet and interact in person. I will never forget that trip. That was so much fun.
Considering how we met, I think a slightly-modified line from a song that Muffy sang in the final scene of Today’s Special’s Butterflies episode:
We love you, Sarah,
We’re glad we met you,
We’ll really miss you,
We won’t forget you,
We love you, Sarah,
We’re glad we met you,
We’ll really miss you,
We won’t forget a friend like you…
A friend like you…
A friend like you.
I’m sure that Sarah, looking down from heaven, knows how much we miss her, and how much we loved getting to know her and sharing so many special moments together.