sister solidarity. and with prayers for maureen.

something amazing happened today. well, amazing to me, anyway.

once upon a college day, i was in a sorority. shocking? perhaps. but it's true. the 43 other girls in my pledge class were made up of 42 people i had never laid eyes on. through the coming first 9 months of college, we were bound together by a lot of great frat party/gameday/keg stand/one night stand(kidding)/pee in your neighbors bed/laugh until it hurts kind of times, but we were also bound together by tragedy. at the end of our freshman year, one of our dear friends, who had also become a sister beyond the scope of sorority, was killed tragically. and this group of 44 girls, who had always held hands walking home from the bars, were now holding hands around her coffin.

we were never the same.

nor should we have been.

tragedy struck us again the summer after graduation. and we knew how to react. we had been so bonded by our "sisterhood" in the previous 4 years that it was only certain human nature to respond and react again, as we had been forced to do seemingly so recently. the bond was still so intact . . . afterall, it had only been a matter of weeks since we had been together.

years have passed and we have all endured our ups and downs, highs and impossible lows. distance separates most of us and some of us haven't even spoken since the day we left our perfect utopia which was college. life happened. life is happening. it is impossible to think we can all continue to live under one roof, in one town, between one breath, only a mere 2 minutes from each other.

sadly, tragedy has hit one of us again. and here is the miracle:

within minutes . . . and i mean minutes . . . i was flooded with calls, emails, text messages, facebook messages, every possible cyber source of communication there is to ensure that this news had reached my ears.

certain friends whom i have not spoken to in years reached out. they wanted us all to know. they wanted us all to be solidified by the same unity we have only ever known. and in those moments, i was reminded that it is not the phone calls that keep us together. it is not the constant communication, nor the frequent visits, nor the flowers on birthdays, nor the random late night calls to say i love you still.

it is the fact that we have always been a group bonded by loyalty and friendship and a sworn honest promise to look out for each other. no matter what. that is what has kept us together through the 12 years since we first stood upon the lawn on milledge avenue and embraced the fact that we might have once been strangers, but going forward we would be nothing less than sisters.

i don't have any real sisters. you know, by blood or anything. but i have these 43 girls. and i am eternally grateful for every single one of them.