i have a friend

her name is lee. well, to me she is lee. to almost everyone else, she is lee ann. i can't remember when she started introducing herself as lee ann instead of just lee, but, well, anyway, to me, she is lee. she is my sister.

she is almost exactly 18 months younger than me, but if you were to meet us in person, you would probably think that she is the older one. i'm much quieter and laid back than she is. i'm quite opinionated and stubborn, as she is, she's just much louder about it. :)

have you ever known a family, or maybe it's your own, when the children are just so different? they are raised by the same parents, with the same standards and the same rules, but the results are completely different. that's the way our family was. my brother (younger as well) and i were the 'well behaved' ones. lee was the rebel.

she hasn't had the easiest life. some things happened that were not of her choosing, and others, that were. she's been a single mother and an addict. she is the birth mother to a set of beautiful twin girls. she is now happily married, a mother to two wonderful little girls, and has been clean for 8 years.

she loves her family. she is fiercely loyal. she's sensitive. she's funny. she loves football. she roots for the philadelphia eagles even though she hasn't lived there in over  7 years. it's the loyalty thing. the thing i love about her the most is her capacity to love. she loves with her whole being. it's amazing to me. she can love people in a way that i never could.

right now, lee is laying in a hospital bed. she was admitted yesterday because of severe pain. she found out she was pregnant (they were trying) but the symptoms she has point towards the pregnancy being ectopic. the other thing they found while doing the tests was a blood clot in her lung. the hospital admitted her. they won't know about the pregnancy until tomorrow probably. she is on blood thinner to get rid of the clot.

i'm hoping, hoping, praying that the pregnancy is not ectopic and all of her symptoms are because of the lung clot. she really wants another baby. but, this blood clot. this is messing with me. i keep telling myself that the doctors have it under control. when i talk to her, i keep it upbeat. but, inside, i'm kind of freaking out. my mind goes to the worst possible scenario.  i love my sister, i want her around for a long long time.

when we were younger, we didn't get along very well.  we fought a lot. it felt like since she was the 'hard' child, she got a lot of attention. we were so very different.  we still are so very different, but we're friends. daily texts and or phone calls. we live over 800 miles apart but she is one of my closest friends.

she shows me how to love with my whole heart. she shows me that it is completely possible to change. she shows me courage by living her life, and living it well, with hope and perseverance even though it's not easy.

i have a friend, her name is lee, to me, anyway.