Honestly, Sandie

Everyone was giving her space.

I thought she probably had enough of that already.

We had only known each other a short time. She had recently moved to the Tri-Cities, and while she already had deep roots here through lifelong friendships, she was still new to me. Our kids were close in age. I was pregnant with my youngest daughter. She was carrying a grief most of us couldn’t even imagine.

People weren’t being cruel. They just didn’t know what to say. When pain gets that big, silence starts to feel like the safest option.

I walked over anyway.

I don’t remember every word. I remember what I wanted her to know.

You don’t have to sit here by yourself.

That conversation became the foundation for one of the sweetest friendships I’ve ever had.

Our kids grew up together. Sleepovers bounced between our houses. We’d send each other videos of whichever group of children was currently turning the house upside down. One weekend she asked if I’d take all of her boys so she and her husband could get away for a couple of days.

Absolutely.

I still laugh about pushing a cart through WinCo with what looked like my own small civilization. My boys. Her boys. My daughter riding in the front. Strangers smiled and congratulated me on finally having a girl.

I just smiled back.

There was no reason to explain something that made me laugh.

Life kept filling in the spaces between us.

I baked her a cake while she was stuck in the hospital during one of her pregnancies because celebrations shouldn’t disappear just because life gets complicated.

Another time a few of us convinced the nurses we were taking her outside for some fresh air.

The fresh air happened.

So did the Mexican food.

That’s how our friendship worked. We laughed a lot. We cried without apologizing for it. We asked hard questions. Neither of us expected the other person to have the right answers.

Years later, I watched her leave the church before I did.

I could see it long before the announcement ever came. Not because she wanted to leave, but because grief has a familiar look once you’ve sat beside it long enough.

After they left, I told her how much I admired the way she was standing beside her husband and supporting the decision they had made for their family.

Months later she said something I’ll never forget.

“That’s hard to hear.”

She wasn’t correcting me.

She was letting me see another piece of the story.

Leaving broke her heart too.

I understand that conversation differently now than I did then.

Back then, I saw a wife honoring her husband.

Now I also see a woman carrying the weight of leaving people she loved while choosing to keep her family moving in the same direction.

Both things were true.

Rose Quartz gets its color from thousands of microscopic mineral fibers woven throughout the stone. One tiny strand doesn’t change much. Add enough of them together and the whole stone takes on that soft pink glow.

Friendships work like that.

One awkward conversation.

One hospital visit.

One shopping cart full of kids.

One weekend of borrowed chaos.

One honest confession years later.

None of those moments seem very extraordinary by themselves.

Woven together, they become something you carry for the rest of your life.

Rose Quartz is often called the stone of unconditional love.

I think that’s because real love isn’t measured by how easy someone is to love.

It’s measured by who walks toward you when everyone else is trying to figure out what to say.

Song Pairing: True Colors — Justin Timberlake & Anna Kendrick

“I see your true colors shining through…”

That’s what she gave me.

And I hope that’s what she saw in me, too.