February 19, 2022
Thank you, Jeanne, for gathering us together to celebrate Sarah’s life. Thank you for allowing me a moment to share some of my recollections about a remarkable, gentle soul that I had the good fortune to first know in junior high school and with whom I had the friendship of a life-time. My name is Milt Louie.
What I remember most about this short girl, with curly blonde hair are some gestures – an amused small, slight smile, but not quite a smirk, a tilt of the head and a somewhat pensive “hmmm” with her eyes closed. But when she was really happy, she would give a hearty laugh with her eyes wide open.
Sarah and I met in the mid 1960s, during that awkward time in life when we were hesitantly finding out who we were and how to interact with others, definitely a most confusing time. For 3 years, from the 9th to the 11th grades, we were attended the same junior and senior high schools in the Maryland suburbs of southeast Washington, DC. We were not part of the “cool kids” at our school; you know – the cool kids were the outward, confident, vivacious, popular types. Rather we and a small number were the introverted, unconfident, hesitant types who always followed the “rules” and the “laws”. Before there were terms like nerds or geeks, I think we fit more comfortably with those who took 4 years of a foreign language, advanced math and science, and read literature beyond the assigned readings or books. Since she took Spanish, I recall Sarah telling me about a thick book she had read, Don Quioxte by someone named Miguel de Cervantes. Truth be told I never read that thick book in either Spanish or English, but her introduction led me to appreciate the musical Man of La Mancha. She also handed me a thin paperback book with an imposing photo of a bearded man with a pipe. It was called the “Primer on Freudian Psychology”. Now who reads about Freud as a junior in high school? Sarah did. And this one I did read because I wanted to understand my “id” and rebel against my “superego”.
Although we attended basketball games and track meets, our group of friends aka “The Gang”, also went to plays and concerts, often to other high schools. I recall about 9 of us piled into a station wagon driving across town to see The Fantastiks, an off-Broadway musical, at another high school. The Fantastiks had only 9 characters and was about a girl and a boy learning about life. It is famous for its song, Try to Remember with an unforgettable line, “without a hurt, the heart is hollow.”
For my senior year of high school, my family moved overseas because of my father’s deployment to the Philippines. Sarah and I kept in touch over the years. While I returned a year later to attend the University of Maryland, she went to University of Michigan for college and majored in Russian. Like, why Russian? I thought her roots were from Alabama! Eventually she returned to Washington and worked at the Library of Congress – and of course handled all of the Russian publications. She possessed an amazing intellect and was so scholarly, but she was always understated, never loud or boastful.I headed west to medical school at UCLA and became an infectious disease physician and have remained in California, but we kept in touch with annual Christmas cards. I learned Sarah had a passion for figure skating and was something of a groupie and would attend the US Olympic Finals every 4 years, even once coming to California. I know she would have loved the recent performances by our American skaters these past weeks.
I occasionally visited Washington and got to see Sarah and eventually met Howard at the Library of Congress. In fact, we had lunch together.
In December 2020, I was shocked to get a call from Howard, telling me that Sarah had been hospitalized for heart problems. He gave me Sarah’s hospital phone number, and I’m ever grateful that I had the opportunity to talk with her a few times. We talked a lot about her medical conditions and her diabetes that she had had since childhood. I also had the opportunity to speak at length to her cardiologist. We were all optimistic that though her recovery would be slow, she would eventually be able to go home. That was not meant to be, but I still recall hearing her voice - planning on going home and hearing her occasionally utter a pensive “hmmm” that vividly reminded me of this short curly blonde haired girl with a slight smile.
Although our hearts hurt now, they aren’t hollow; they are full. I don’t know if Sarah ever saw the musical Wicked, but when I recall the song Being Good, I think of Sarah. One line says, “because I knew you, I have been changed for good”. Because I knew Sarah early in my life, she made me a better person and my heart is not hollow, it is full.
Created: 9 Aug 2022
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