Photo Challenge: Day 9

"A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most."



I can't even explain how long it took for me to find this photo. There are other pictures of us floating around, but they either involved drunken karaoke, drunken karaoke, or pregnancy. I don't think she'll kill me for posting this one since it's now 7 years old. Though I think she might kill me for posting sappy crap about her.

This is my friend Sara. You will not find any recent pictures of me and Sara because the military has stationed our husbands on opposite sides of the country. The last time I saw Sara, she was pregnant with her first baby. And now her second baby is coming up on his first birthday in a couple of months. Our pregnancies have kept us from visiting one another, but that's what military wives do when their husband is home: breed.

Without going into too many details, Sara has dragged me through a lot. There was my first ever deployment, during which she used to come over on her work breaks just to make sure I was still alive. There was my second divorce, which was a nightmare. She dragged her butt all the way to DC after I got married to Jere, just so we could tour the city and visit. She remains one of the few who has ever made the effort to come my way. Then, when she was pregnant with her daughter, Jere was deployed and I was in the middle of infertility treatments, and she would moan about some aspect of her pregnancy, then add on, "Just you wait. You're next. And then I am going to laugh at YOU!" She was right. I was next. And she did laugh at me!

Most importantly, Sara sees me through my bad mom moments. You know, the ones where my kid is screaming at the top of his lungs and I've had no sleep, so I stick him in his crib, shut the door, and rock myself in a corner while I listen? You can bet that Sara's on the phone telling me that it has to stop sometime and that letting him cry it out when I've reached my end is the right move. She corrals her two children in the background while I cry about mine.

What's the best part of this? It's that Sara and I, thanks to the generosity of our husbands, get to live in the same city for a WHOLE YEAR starting in a couple of months. Just when I think she can't possibly have anymore to give, she offered to come to the hospital for the birth of my next child. Not all friends would volunteer for that one, but she's on board...on one condition. "If they ask me to hold your leg while you push, that's where I draw the line."