Honestly, Sandie

Gemstones 28/30

Some stones sparkle.

Malachite doesn’t bother.

It has something better.

Its deep green bands twist over one another, each layer earned through pressure, time, and change. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is polished away. Every mark becomes part of what makes it beautiful.

I’ve always loved that.

The people I love most usually look a little like Malachite.

When I moved to Washington in 2010, I didn’t know many people.

Malachite was one of the first.

She hired me to photograph her vow renewal, and I thought I was saying yes to a photo session. I had no idea I was saying yes to fifteen years of doing life together.

One of the greatest gifts of my life has been having a front-row seat to hers.

I’ve watched four little kids become incredible young adults. I’ve celebrated graduations, first jobs, big dreams, hard seasons, and watched one scared teenage girl become an incredible mom. Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of them as her kids.

They simply became kids I loved.

Then Malachite decided raising four kids wasn’t enough of a challenge.

She went back to school to become a teacher.

There were texts before exams. Texts while waiting for scores. Texts wondering if she could actually pull this off.

I never spent much time convincing her she was capable.

I just reminded her of what I already knew until she believed it again.

Watching her graduate felt exactly right.

One thing I’ve never believed is when Malachite says she’s hard to love.

I don’t think she’s hard to love.

I think she’s impossible to love halfway.

She loves from the center of herself.

She’s bold enough to ask the question everyone else avoids. Honest enough to tell the truth when it costs something. Loyal enough to stay after the hard conversation is over.

I’ve always loved every piece of that.

There came a season when I felt her slipping away.

Nothing had happened.

Nobody had said anything.

I just felt it.

So I texted her.

“I can’t lose any more friends at this place.”

I didn’t know she had already decided it was time to leave.

I only knew I couldn’t bear losing another friendship.

When she called, I wasn’t upset.

I understood.

A lot of people left over the years.

Malachite was the only one who called.

The only one.

Months later she asked me a question that has stayed with me ever since.

“Why are you still there when they treat you so poorly?”

No one else asked me that.

Not once.

At the time, I didn’t have an answer.

Now I do.

I had spent years believing my best belonged to building someone else’s vision.

I never stopped loving the people.

I just wish I’d realized sooner that some of the best people in my life deserved more than whatever I had left after the meetings were over.

If I could borrow those years back, I wouldn’t serve less.

I’d simply choose differently.

One more coffee.

One more dinner.

One more Tuesday sitting on Malachite’s couch.

Those are the moments that become a life.

I can’t hear As You Find Me without ending up back on those roads.

Not because of where I first learned the song.

Because of where it found me.

It takes me back to searching for her daughter. To praying she’d be safe. To believing she’d come home. To watching a family hold onto hope when hope was hard to find.

She was found.

Every time that song comes on, that’s the story I hear.

Not a church.

A friendship.

A family.

A God who never stopped finding people.

Including me.

That’s why Malachite could never be any other stone.

Its beauty isn’t found in a flawless surface.

It’s found in every layer that stayed.

Every layer mattered.

Every layer became part of the whole.

When I think about Malachite, I don’t think about a rock.

I think about a woman who has loved from the center of herself for fifteen years.

A woman who had the courage to ask the question that helped change my life.

A woman who gave me the privilege of a front-row seat to her family while never letting me forget I belonged in it too.

That’s a beautiful life. And that’s a beautiful stone.

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while. Some stories deserve good timing. Consider this a little gift… perfectly placed.