The Gift of Friendship

 I don't remember when I met Brittany. I think it was in junior high. She was a cheerleader (but, I didn't like them too much) and I think she wore glasses, but I'm not sure.
During the summer after junior high, Brittany was involved in a terrible car accident. She was the passenger and was seriously injured. Her face was really cut up from the windshield and she spent a fair amount of time in the hospital.

Our friendship blossomed during HS, where we shared crazy-hard AP classes and made trips to Dairy Queen when we should have been studying. Brittany had the best of both worlds, she was cute and popular, but also smart and down-to-earth. Even though she had it all, I still remember watching her squeeze small pieces of glass from the scars on her face years after her car accident. She never made a big deal about it, but I know it was a very traumatic event that was difficult to overcome.

Fast forward 2 years. The summer of 2000, Britt are friends from a distance, because she went to Ricks when I went to BYU. Still, we're delighted to find that we're both getting married, in the same temple, 2 weeks apart (in the same room!) She looks great on her wedding day, cute curly hair and a slightly tilted tiara (which I tried to 'fix,' much to her dismay.) She is so happy. She snagged a great guy, an engineer named Doug.

After that, we're both at BYU, Britt and I hang out with our husbands as newlywed couples to play Rook and learn how to be married. Before too long, Britt is pregnant. Savannah is born in November of 2001 and she has some difficulties. The diagnosis is Russell Silver Syndrome, a very rare congenital disorder. Savannah won't breastfeed or take a bottle, and her severe reflux means she has to be fed through a tube in her nose. When we were both at Wyview, Mark and I babysat Savannah once or twice. We learned a lot and really enjoyed her cute babyness (I also got prepped for my kids who had projectile vomiting.)

The next July, Jaxon was born and diagnosed with severe hemophilia. Brittany was one of the first people I called. She cried with me as we talked about our special kids. I remember how comforting it was to have a friend how knew first-hand the disappointment and fear that I felt.

The years have passed and we have both moved back to Arizona and have our second babies: Brittany had Mikenna in 2003 and I had Asher in 2006.

While she was pregnant with her third child and first boy, Britt was finishing up nursing school. She asked me to watch her girls while she did her last semester. So, her girls and my boys played a few times a week. I enjoyed watching them grow and play together. In March I found out I was pregnant with Finley just as Britt was in her 3rd trimester with Daxton. He was born May 31st 2007, just before she took and passed her nursing licensing test.

A year later, it's harder to get together as much because we have six kids between the two of us and Brittany works part-time at a hospital's NICU. We still get go on double dates or family picnics occasionally, but not as often as we'd like.

One week ago today, Brittany sent out an email that broke my heart.
While she and her husband were hiking back from a weekend at Havasupai, her 12 month old baby Daxton was killed in a household accident. Four hours later they came to the hospital to say goodbye to their little boy who just turned one. In the days that have followed, I have thought about her and her family, and how much I love them.
I visited Brittany and hugged her. She cried. I cried. I held her hand while she told me about the casket she'd just picked out, "It's so small," she wept.
But, I can't comfort her in the way that she comforted me nearly 6 years ago. I don't know how it feels to lose a child.

I just know how much it hurts to watch a friend I love lose her child.

It's terrible. Even now, exactly a week later, I don't feel better. The funeral was intense, but the highlight was when Brittany and Doug shared their memories of baby Daxton. Although the chapel was full of united sobs and sniffles, there was a spirit of hope and healing.

So, tonight I wanted to write about my friendship with Brittany. Our lives have been entwined, and strangely parallel. And although I don't know if I'll ever stop grieving for her loss, I know that I'll never stop being her friend. She's gone through so many difficult trials, and she always comes away stronger. Everybody needs a friend like that.