Sara
I wrote this in August 2011.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
My friend Sara Cottrell was born on Christmas Day. Pretty fitting date, really.
She died this past Saturday, surrounded by her family, in her home state of Washington.
Sara was one of the most absurdly funny, scary smart, positive people that I have ever encountered in my 32 years. When she was diagnosed last summer with colon cancer, she opened a blog called “Sara’s Butt: Cancer will rue the day it entered my butt.” (read it at http://sarasbutt.wordpress.com) She went through the trials of being a newly minted cancer patient, documenting the beginning stages of chemotherapy, and how you could bait a nurse to come check on you more often with baked goods and bribery. She cut out miniature celebrity visitors for each stage of her chemo to hang out on her I.V. and keep her company, along with all of her good friends that came by and helped her wreak her particular brand of havoc on the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance chemo ward.
I mention the celebrity guests, because alongside Richard Simmons, Chuck Norris, David Hasselhoff (Baywatch, not Knight Rider) and Bret Michaels…I got to be one of the cutout guests to pass the time with her. She did have to declare that I was no celebrity, so I’m sure I was rounded up and tossed out at some point. Unworthy to loiter in the lair of Queen Cottrell.
I met her in 2000 or so. Some friends and I had been writing at one website, and started an offshoot called Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza. Along with the blog, filled with hackneyed attempts at “humor”, we also had a message board. That’s when an unknown poster by the name of “Treat Police” showed up and soon had us all cackling at her random, hilarious comments and observations. I started chatting with her a little bit, but she seemed standoffish. I have sort of a domineering personality, especially to people who don’t quite know me, but one day, my birthday, in fact, we had a breakthrough on the board, and it started a wonderful friendship. I am not a fan of people just celebrating something for the sake of celebrating it. I enjoy the darker brand of humor, bordering on the completely awful. So, knowing my birthday was coming soon, I’d posted a comic strip from an old internet comic called “Space Moose”, which was one of the more offensive comic strips ever made. Ever.
This is the strip I posted as a subtle hint to birthday well-wishers:
The way I prefer to be treated on my birthday.
While everyone else was boring me to tears with that same old trite “Happy Birthday, Matt!” messages, this Treat Police character told me that I was one year closer to being found face down in a ditch. It caught me off guard, and it made me laugh, and we were instantly friends. She was the only one who got it. She would continue this birthday tradition, making it more and more morose and horrible every year. No one ever seemed to catch on that that I enjoyed THAT sort of thing way more than empty “happy birthday” greetings.
I’ll let Sara tell that part of the story, from a later explanation on why she did what she did:
“My birthday message was pretty much exactly what I posted on HMCTD several years ago for your birthday, before we were really internet buddies. I didn’t quite “get” you yet, and you scared me a little bit. But you seemed to like my birthday sentiments then, and I view it as kind of the turning point when I decided my delicate feelings were stupid. So I totally recycled that this year due to a lack of creativity, in hopes the sentiment would make up for it.You’ve been a really good friend to me for several birthdays now, and you’ve been responsible for a whole bunch of my Facebook status updates turning into crazy hilarity. You announced my biggest insecurity to the whole internet and still made me laugh. (I can’t believe you told everyone I live in Washington, dude). Pals
DON’T TELL ANYONE but secretly I hope your birthday didn’t suck and I don’t really hate you. Love, Mom.”
Why did she sign her message “Love, Mom”, you ask? Because, one, we were both highly goofy and made “Your Mom” jokes a lot, and two, she would defend me violently (acting as my mother) when anyone made a “Your Mom” joke directed at myself. To the point that she made her Facebook url “http://facebook.com/MattBarnettesMom” just to make me laugh.
Sara accepted that life was silly, and made the most of it. She was a loyal friend who truly cared about those close to her. She loved her cheesy white cowboy boots. She loved bad sweater parties. She would randomly text the word “Fart” to me, and for some reason it always made me laugh. We publicly espoused the virtues of tacos and lasagna and I respected her being a fan of the Seahawks as much as she empathized at the visceral pain I felt every time NFL season was about to start again, because I hate hearing about it soooooo much.
July 20th, 2010: She let me know that they’d found a tumor, and she entered into a battery of tests, biopsies, the works. She never let it get her too down and she kept a positive mindset, even when the ramifications of what was happening to her were pretty intensely heavy. She wanted to beat it so badly. She had Raft Club to look forward to, and acting like she was a Canadian when the next Winter Olympics were going to happen. In her driveway was a brand new Chevy Camaro she bought, for the following reason. “Why not have it now?”
I wrote her a silly message a few months ago out of the blue because I hadn’t heard from her in a few days:
“HELLO THERE.
I would say that you have a nice ass, but I think we both know better. You have a mean ass. It’s a jerk, really. A jerk ass.
Well, I was thinking of you and thought I would drop a note to say helloooo. I just got an iPhone 4 and it’s pretty sweet, but you don’t have one so any initial excitement of “Oh boy I can video face time call with Sara!” were ill-advised.
So instead, print out a photo of me and hold it really close to your face and i’ll do likewise and then we can talk on the phone and it’ll be REAAAAAAL similar, ok? Because my face is not expressive. Ok it is but let’s pretend. You can also print out a picture of Garfield if you want because our love of lasagna is similar (WHICH IS BULL — because I like it way more)
Anyway, tacos are delicious and you are fantastic and I love you bunches and hope you are doing and feeling better.
Yours in Jesus,Dr. Barnette”
She responded the following morning:
“HI FRENNND!!!!!!
I didn’t get a chance to write you back yesterday, but I want you to know your timing was impeccable. I had been a bit of a gloomy gus all week and found your trash talking my butt while wooing me with mentions of lasagna incredibly uplifting.
Tomorrow at work maybe I will print out a picture of you for this iPhone business, then I will flip a coin about calling before it’s officially Answer The Phone Like Buddy The Elf Day.
I ate burritos today but you make me think I should have eaten tacos. Have you ever considered starting a cult?
Really though, thank you for sending this goofy note. It really made my day. I love you back bunches, maybe more than tacos. Definitely more than lasagna.
Hold Me Closer Tony Danza,Regina Papageorgio”
She had spoken to me at length about depression, which is something I was/am going through and something she’d dealt with in the past, and she also helped coach me out of my two-pack-a-day smoking habit a few years ago with some really sound advice that actually worked and still works to this day. We talked about all sorts of things all the time, and I think of all the things I will miss most about Sara Cottrell, apart from her ridiculous sense of humor and love of life and general amazingness…it’s selfishly the fact that one of the only people on this planet that ever really understood me, and could get to the bottom of issues with me isn’t there anymore. Sara was one of the best conversationalists there’s ever been. It’s an overlooked quality, but it’s important for any sort of lasting friendship.
She’d been online intermittently as of late. I had grown somewhat concerned, but figured with the ebb and flow of good news and bad news that comes from chemotherapy that she was just getting taken care of, and would be back in time. In the meantime, I lost my job supposedly due to “budget cuts.” I caught her on one night and we talked about that and about her and about how she’d just bought a Camaro because “why not?” and then we got on this website called Turntable.fm that lets you DJ music like you’re in a nightclub. We had a lot of fun and played a bunch of stupid 80′s music and forgot about all our troubles for a little while. She got tired after a bit and told me she’d be on later that week.
I didn’t see her on at all.
A few days later, I got this message:
“LETS START A NO WORK POSSE. Hay I might be going on disability in the next week or so so we can finally sit around all day and be computer djs. I think the timing will work out well here. Just no djs till noon because I like the sleep.
And no getting a job for like 3 months because then we wouldn’t be a no work posse.”
I didn’t see her online at all after that.
July 28th, 2011–1 year and 8 days after she’d told me they found a tumor, she posted on her blog that her doctor had told her she had one of the most aggressive cases of cancer he’d ever seen.
He also told her that remission wasn’t likely at all.
I tried to touch base with her a few times, mostly because I was worried about her frame of mind. I finally saw a chink in her positive cancer armor and the weight of the situation seemed to be bearing down on her. I tried to keep things light, and chided her for ignoring her internet duties. I asked how she was doing, and I got the last message I’d ever receive from Sara.
“Bleh. I am a mutant who lives with her parents now and won’t leave the house because seriously every other pore on my nose is like a can of spray cheese, for real. And my stomach has been hurting for 4 days but I won’t call my doctor because I don’t want to get checked into the hospital again.
But otherwise I’m okay. I know you hate the out of work stuff but disability is wonderful.
How you kids doing, besides that job stuff? Is it still unbearably warm?
Start applying for jobs up here, we’re having a terrible summer.”
She’d always harassed me about getting a job wherever she lived. Both in Chicago and back in Washington. It had become just another in a long line of half-serious/half-kidding running jokes that we had.
“We’re having a terrible summer” was the last thing Sara ever said to me.
I messaged her a few times and got no response. I texted her on Friday night, and tried to type “Saaaaaaara” but my iPhone auto-corrected it to say “Sassafras.” I thought it was funny, so I just sent her a text that said “Sassafras, my phone just tried to auto-correct your name to Saaaaaaara.”
No response.
I woke up this morning around 5 a.m., and felt very out of sorts. I grabbed my phone and started checking e-mail, Facebook, etc…and came across Sara’s sister’s message that she left on Sara’s page about her having passed away, surrounded by family, the day before.
I laid in the bed and cried for a good half hour. My wife, who is also friends with Sara, was in shock when I told her.
The jokes, and the messages and the e-mails and the good times we had with Sara Cottrell have entered the stuff of legend. She doesn’t hurt anymore, and I hope she is out there, somewhere, driving her Camaro, laughing because there was no way she was going to be around for the length of the loan.
Her family and friends have lost an outstanding, hilarious, joyful, liver of life. A daughter. A sister. A confidant.
I sit here, and my face hurts from crying, and I will miss a whole lot of things that Sara meant to me.
Mostly, I just miss my friend.
I love you to pieces, Sara Cottrell.
We’re having a terrible summer.