Wednesday, October 24, 2012

In memory of Sara....
 


Six years have passed since my dear friend, Sara Benin, lost a valiant and courageous battle with cancer.

I can honestly say that not one day of those six years has passed without me thinking of her…and missing her. 

I think of her smile, her hearty laugh, her wit.  I think of her love for her family.  I think of her care and concern for her friends.  I think of her devotion to her faith.  I think of funny “Sara-isms.”  I think of her sage advice.

I really don’t remember the first conversation that Sara and I had at our old law firm.  Perhaps we shared a laugh about something during a section meeting.  But what likely began as a conversation about work quickly evolved into us sharing stories about our lives – as wives, as mothers, as daughters, as women of faith.  As unlikely as a friendship between an Orthodox Jew who was the daughter of Holocaust survivors and a Christian may have seemed to others, it seemed perfectly natural to us.  We focused on what we had in common, and those ties formed the basis of a wonderful friendship.

We were both only children, both born to older parents, both raised in homes where expectations were great.  We were both deeply rooted in our faith – even if we had lived through periods during which we didn’t realize just how deeply rooted we were.  We loved our families and we loved motherhood; we were amazed by our children.  As much as we both enjoyed our careers as lawyers, we never forgot that we were wives and mothers and daughters first; everything else came a distant second. 

We soon began enjoying more relaxed conversations away from the office.  We planned play dates – at the zoo, at a park, at a carousel at a local mall – where our children could play and we could sneak in a little bit of adult conversation.  Even when we no longer practiced law together, we made it a point regularly to grab lunch at a favorite spot so that we could catch up.

Sara was a brilliant lawyer.  Her sharp mind and grasp of even the most minute details made her a highly-sought-after intellectual property lawyer, to the end.

But Sara was much more than a brilliant lawyer.  She was an amazing friend – a good listener, with a compassionate heart.  She loved life, and she gave unselfishly to others.   For months, she’d visited the bedside of a teacher who had been left comatose from an accident, spending hours nearly each day reading and talking to her. She cared patiently and tirelessly for her own mother, celebrating the joy of hearing her mother call her by a beloved nickname as Alzheimer’s robbed her of her memories. As my parents’ health deteriorated and I struggled with making the best decisions regarding their care, Sara became my sounding board and support.  Even as she endured cancer, Sara’s sunny disposition was contagious.  You couldn’t be around Sara – and her hearty laugh – and be in a bad mood for long.  She had this way of always knowing just what to say.   

And as much as I missed Sara when she and her family moved to Jerusalem, she was never far away.  Her emails gave beautiful descriptions of her new home and all that she was discovering each day.  Cancer had neither defined nor limited her.  She was living life to its fullest – taking care of her husband and children, moving her mother to Jerusalem, practicing law from her apartment, experiencing all of the sights and sounds and culture of her new home.   Even from across the world, Sara continued to be a devoted friend and confidant.  We exchanged lengthy emails, and caught up on our face time during her visits back to Memphis.     

To the end, Sara never hesitated to give unselfishly of herself to others. She hadn’t wanted any of us to know just how sick she was during her last visit to Memphis, a couple of months before her death.  Sara had decided that the visit was a time for happy memories, and it was.  We visited.  We laughed.  We talked about children becoming teenagers.  We talked about Jerusalem.  We shared our stories of caring for our parents.  We planned a lunch at our home for some of the female lawyers from our old law firm.  We laughed and talked and laughed some more.  I shared with her my hope that I would get to visit her in Jerusalem; I longed to walk alongside her on the streets of her new home, taking in the sights through her eyes.  Even though the visit for which I hoped just wasn’t to be, I’m still planning to make my way there, with the images from her emails and our conversations embedded in my mind and in my heart. 

Sara’s last email to me, just days before her death, was a message of consolation following my father’s death, just weeks before.  Her beautiful last message to me was one of comfort and reassurance; she reminded me of all that I had done to care for both my parents, and of how very much I was loved.  She wasn’t there to give me a hug, or to take me away for a girls’ day out, she said, but she asked me to spend a day doing something as if we were enjoying it together. 

Just like Sara…always knowing just what to say.