A Girl Who Made Our Lives Stronger: Be in Peace, Sarah

Sarah Pease was and will always be another daughter in our family.

We knew Sarah since she was in the third grade, when she and our daughter Libby became best friends. Over the weeks and months and years, the two of them were inseparable.

In recent years, they developed a group of other very close friends.  These friends shared many good times at school, in band, at concerts and at home, and they supported each other in difficult times.

You may have read about Sarah’s integrity. She was always interested in truth and forthrightness and not in pretense. But what I remember most is her sense of humor. Her wry comments made me smile or laugh.

Libby and I often picked Sarah up on the way to school in the early morning. Sarah was not a morning person, so we were a perfectly matched set of three. But when we were in the car at other times of day, Sarah would let out what seemed to be the loudest laugh in the world if she heard a good joke or a funny comment. So of course we teased her about that.

During rides to school in winter, Sarah liked to talk about her “other house” in Malibu, and I had fun playing along. I might have even felt warmer. We ended up building on this story for months.

When Sarah was in the hospital, whether I visited her, called her or exchanged Facebook messages, she was the same person I had always known, full of life and good humor. But she did not try to understate what she was going through during her cancer treatment, as anyone who read her Caring Bridge posts already knows.

I will always remember the wonderful times that we spent with Sarah. Sarah is truly unforgettable. I saw her walk the red carpet into a stretch limo on her way to Summerfest, where she had one of the most amazing nights of her life, after one of the most amazing days.

Sarah, you see, had wanted nothing more than to attend West Point. She was also a kid, and loved music, and her favorite band, Maroon 5, was playing that night, July 2, on a Summerfest stage.

But by that time, Sarah was terminal. Her cancer was incurable. And she knew it. She had known it for a long time.

It will never cease to amaze me how these things came together. During that Saturday, Sarah, still perfectly lucid and understanding, received an official declaration from the commandant of West Point Military Academy naming her an honorary cadet – an honor extended to very few. The cadet corps of the Academy had been praying for her daily.

That night, she was brought onstage, in her wheelchair, as Maroon 5 sang and played for her, with lead singer Adam Levine serenading her while wearing a "Sarah Strong" wristband.

Sarah died the early the next morning. She had lived only seven months since her diagnosis with a rare form leukemia. We can't know what effect it had, but while she was at Children's Hospital she had agreed to every experimental and unproven treatment that was proposed – not to prolong her own life but to provide more information to medical science for those others who might benefit from the knowledge.

That is what we all meant by Sarah Strong.

Sarah, this is for you:

I woke at twilight, and the birds were singing every song you ever loved. And then they sang of the love which we all shared with you. And that was even sweeter.

– John Hallanger