I stand here today to tell you how lucky I am.  Lucky to have had the kind of friend you only get to find once in a lifetime.  Not everyone gets a chance to have a friendship like mine and Carrie’s was.  I don’t ever remember a time when she was not in my life.  We became friends when we were very little.  In those early days, we had great play dates filled with hours in the special clubhouse Carrie created in the woods behind her house, family trips to Hershey Park, Thursday night dinners at one of our houses, late night talks during sleep overs.  Playing endless games of Brady Bunch – Carrie was always the mom and I was Jan.  We went to each other’s Bat Mitzvahs.  We went to the same college.  We got married in the same place four months apart.  We each moved to Old Bethpage.  We each had our first daughter in the same year and then another daughter followed for each of us.  All of it according to the exact plan we dreamed about as little girls. 

As we grew older, we weren’t always close.  We had our differences as friends sometimes do.  But as you grow older you also learn who and what is important in life.  We often made fun of ourselves and the crazy detail that we put into things we did.  There was no one in the world who could appreciate our desire to make things just perfect except each other.  Carrie was my go-to person.  The person I would call when I was down.  The person I would call to tell something funny to.  The person I would ask an opinion of.  The person whose approval I would seek about anything and everything because she would always tell me the honest and sometimes brutal truth.  And then there were the times when I didn’t even have to call.  She knew by the sound of my voice what I needed and she would just miraculously be there.  There was a time when I was overwhelmed by emotion at a dinner table in front of 20 of my friends and Carrie just stood up and said – What my friend Margot means to say is….  That was Carrie always coming to the rescue.  Always putting herself aside for everyone else’s needs.  Carrie was completely selfless.  So many people have said – I had no idea she was so sick.  I know I tell them.  That was Carrie.  Her leaving us was nowhere on her radar of possibilities.  There was no discussion of this.  Because this simply wasn’t an option.  This wasn’t part of our plan.  She rarely complained.  She just got up and did.  Put herself together and forged ahead.

Carrie had many passions, but her greatest joy in life were her two beautiful girls.  Your mommy loved you as big as this world.   Carrie taught us all many things.  I cannot imagine my world without her.  There is a hole in my heart that can never ever be filled.  But I will remember her every single day as the strongest, bravest, most creative, fun amazing woman she was.  My oldest and dearest friend.  As a frame says that she gave me on my last birthday – sisters at heart.  Memories of Carrie are everywhere for me.  The rooms she decorated with accessories in my house.  The pictures from the party she planned for me – every detail as if I planned it myself.  The picture she lovingly painted of my beloved cat Phoebe just to name a very few.  We still had so many things left to do.  Things we talked about as recently as this past summer. 

Carrie.   I will miss you every single day.  I will miss you when I plan things. I will miss you when I have to tell you something.  I will miss you in good times and in bad times.  I love you so very much.

Thank you for always being there for me.

I want to borrow some words from a Faith Hill song I heard that could have been written to describe how I feel.  “in my dreams I’ll always see you soar across the sky.  In my heart there will always be a place for you for all my life.  I’ll keep a part of you with me. And everywhere I am there you’ll be.”  Be brave.  Be strong.  Carry on.   Like Carrie taught us.   Easy to say but don’t sweat the small stuff.  Remember how she put the big stuff aside and rose above.  Rest now my sweet friend.  I love you.