Honestly, Sandie

Gemstones 25/30

Three sapphires.

Blush, Teal, and Golden Champagne were three of the best parts of a world that got very complicated. Each one came from the same family orbit, but none of them ever felt like an extension of anybody else.

They were their own people. Their own light. Their own kind of strength.

Blush came first.

She is soft without being flimsy. Thoughtful without making a show of it. She remembers things. She sees people. She has the kind of care that makes a room better without needing credit for fixing it.

I photographed her wedding, which puts you close enough to watch a whole new life begin. Years later, when she and her husband were living far away, they trusted Alex and me to help announce their first baby to the church. We got to hijack a service with video and sound because that is what happens when you hand production people a secret and tell them not to ruin it.

It was sweet. It was funny. It was family.

Later, Blush and I tried to create more room for women to gather, lead, and build something meaningful together. She had good ideas. Clear ideas. Ideas that came from wanting women to be known instead of assigned a task and handed a sign-up sheet.

She kept showing up with tenderness, even when the answer around her kept sounding like a polite version of “not right now.”

Teal came next.

I photographed her wedding too. She is real in a way that cuts through nonsense fast. Competitive, funny, compassionate, and never interested in pretending everything is fine when it is clearly on fire behind the curtain.

She became a mom, and I got to be one of the people she trusted with the questions that show up when you are trying to raise children, hold a marriage together, and remember who you are outside of everybody needing something from you.

One day I dropped off spaghetti during a hard season.

It was supposed to be a quick meal drop. Hand over pasta. Hug her. Tell her I loved her. Leave before the garlic bread started sweating in the foil.

Three hours later, we were still standing in her house talking.

She did not need someone to turn her pain into a lesson. She did not need a shiny answer with a Bible verse taped to it. She needed someone to listen and believe her without making her work for the right to be heard.

Teal carried a lot, but she never lost the part of herself that could still care deeply for other people.

Golden Champagne came last, but I spent the most time beside her near the end.

She was the builder.

She knew how to take a room full of moving pieces and make it work. She saw the kids who did not know where they fit. She cared about the ones who were loud, awkward, overlooked, too much, not enough, or one bad Wednesday night away from disappearing into the back row forever.

We wanted those kids to know they belonged.

By the last youth camp I attended, my own life had already started breaking apart in ways I could not yet name. Alex had stepped away from leadership. I was there without him, standing in a field watching students I had known since they were little run around and laugh and be teenagers.

No one had talked to me.

No one had asked what was happening with our family.

So I pulled Golden Champagne aside and asked why nobody was saying anything.

She looked at me like I had told her the building was on fire.

She did not know.

They had not told her.

They had not told someone in leadership that Alex had been cut out. They had not told her that no one was checking on me. They had not told her that our family was trying to survive the slow, strange unraveling of something we had helped build for more than a decade.

That conversation showed me how much women can be expected to carry while being handed only the pieces of the story somebody else thinks they should know.

Blush. Teal. Golden Champagne.

Three women with different strengths and different ways of loving people. Three women who gave more than most people ever saw. Three women who were never background characters in someone else’s story.

They were part of the foundation.

Blush carried tenderness with backbone.

Teal carried compassion without losing herself.

Golden Champagne built rooms for people while being given half the blueprint.

I miss them.

I miss the ordinary access of friendship. The calls, the drop-ins, the birthdays, the quick questions, the easy way you can reach for somebody when you all still live inside the same world.

I did not leave because I stopped loving the people.

I left because staying was hurting my family.

Those are not the same thing.

Three sapphires. One setting.

Different colors. Same strength.

I do not get to wear this friendship around every day anymore.

But I still know exactly how much it is worth.