She was my second August baby  – born in the heat and humidity of a Kansas summer in 1978. We lived in an apartment on the second and third stories of an old house without air conditioning and it was beyond miserable.

Not only that, but we had learned only a few weeks before that the landlord was selling the house and we would need to move. So my friend Lori came and helped me to pack up the house where we ran fans to move the sticky, hot air and tried to keep the six, four, and two year old from killing each other or unpacking the boxes as fast as we packed them. Actually she packed and I sat in front of the fan drinking iced tea. I was nine months pregnant, soon-to-be homeless, tired and hot and cranky, and terrified of the upcoming labor and delivery. The memory of the one from two years before still haunted me and I was convinced this time I or the baby would surely die.

It was too hot to sleep, I couldn’t get comfortable, and about 5:00 a.m. I woke Paul. “I think we should go to the hospital.” “Why, are you in labor?” he asked as he grabbed his clothes. “I think so. Maybe. I don’t know. Not really. But it would be cool there and I think I might be having some contractions . . . maybe.” Paul finally agreed that the worst that could happen is that we could get some temporary relief before they sent us home. By 5:30 we were at the hospital and I thought I might be in labor. Maybe. Much to our surprise, they admitted me and as the contractions picked up in intensity, Paul and I settled in for the long haul, drinking in the cool, de-humidified air. I hoped and prayed that I would have a baby by nightfall, but we were not optimistic. Before too long, the nurse announced in a very cheery voice, “Mrs. Abbott, I think we’re going to have this baby here by breakfast.” Seriously? How could this happen?? And I knew at that moment that there was, indeed, a God in heaven. The delivery was fast, complication free, and almost before we started, it was over. Sarah Leanne – born August 9 at 7:30 a.m. I remember the doctor singing the jingle from the Sarah Lee commercial:  Everybody doesn’t like something, but notbody doesn’t like Sarah Lee..

But we still had that pesky issue of our house being sold out from under us. We eventually found an upstairs apartment a block down the street from our previous residence which is a whole story within itself.  Once again, it was an old house and we were renting the upstairs but it had no kitchen so we had to build a kitchen and “we” are not carpenters. But another story for another day. In the meantime we were still in August, still in Kansas, and still without air conditioning. So we improvised a plan that we would load up the kids and the baby and Lori in our old van and drive to a pastor’s conference being held at a camp in the Rocky Mountains. We found a great cardboard box to take for the baby to sleep in, threw some sleeping bags in the van and we were good to go. We had grown up in Colorado and we knew it would be cool and dry and besides we could stop by Pueblo at the foot of the mountains and visit my mother so she could see the new baby. “Let’s  just make it a surprise visit,” I insisted. It is only in retrospect that I see that what made this attractive is that I did not wish to face my mother’s wrath when she learned of our plan to take a three day old infant on such an odyssey. I reasoned (incorrectly it turns out) that if we showed up on her doorstep she would be so pleased that she would keep her opinions of the wisdom of the plan to herself.

What I did not know at the time is that as we were making our way to the mountains, my oldest sister Lila was traveling across the plains of Kansas. My mother insisted that she take a detour to “check up on Sherry and the baby and to make sure she’s not overdoing. But we won’t tell her you’re coming – just drop in and surprise them,” my mother said. Which is how my sister arrived on the porch of 1223 Ohio in Lawrence, Kansas, to find that not only were we not at home, but that we were on a road trip to Colorado. “That can’t be,” she explained to the downstairs tenants.  “She’s just had a baby. They wouldn’t be so stupid as to haul that baby across the country.”

In the “new” apartment, the three older kids all shared one big bedroom and Sarah slept in a cradle (which had replaced the card board box) in our room, but she was outgrowing the cradle which meant we would need to make other arrangements. Our good friends had given birth to their first born a few days before Sarah was born which meant that they too were on the lookout for a crib. And then one night Jim and Libby showed up at our front door holding a big box. “We brought you a crib,” they said. “Because if our baby is going to sleep in a new crib, so should yours.” And they came in and we unpacked it and set it up in the kids’ room and they slept through it all. It was not the first or the last time that God would show his generosity to us and our family through this couple and it was nights like these that linked our stories over the years.

When she was about three we were staying at a campground on vacation – The Blue Mountain Campground in Branson, Missouri. We pitched our tents, cooked over the campfire, went to Silver Dollar City for one day and hung out at the pool for several days. In the days of resorts and beach houses it sounds pretty lame but for somebody with four kids and no money, it was a great way to vacation! It was on one of those “hanging out at the pool” days that it happened. I had run up to the tent for something and Paul was with the kids. The big kids had a beach ball that they had blown up and were tossing back and forth to each other. Sarah didn’t want to get in the water – she couldn’t swim and the water was over her head – and she was happy to stand by the side of the pool in her new “thwimming thoup” and throw the ball to them. On one of the throws she forgot to let go and flew into the pool, lost the ball, and disappeared under the water. Her brother tried to help her but couldn’t manage to swim and carry her and that left Dad, a non- swimmer himself. He lay down flat on the concrete, reached his body and his arm far into the pool and grabbed her, pulling her out of the water.  He likes to point out that he is the only non-swimmer in the family and yet the only one to save someone from drowning. Given her inauspicious start to camping, it is surprising that Sarah is the only one of the six who still enjoys pitching a tent in the great outdoors and sleeping on the ground. But she’s adventuresome like that and she gets her love for Nature and the out of doors from her father.

For Sarah, life was about discovery.

When she was about five and learning to read we would painstakingly work on letter sounds, blends, and trying to combine them into words. But it was laborious and less than rewarding. And then one day it clicked and she looked at the letters and they formed themselves into a word and then another and then another. And that tiny little person looked up at me, her face lit up with the excitement of a whole new world that was about to open up to her and shouted,  “This is great!! I can read and listen at the same time!!!” And so began her life-long love of reading. To this day, she is one of my best resources when it comes to new and interesting reading material because she is always reading something.

She must have been six or seven when one of the other kids pointed out to me that Sarah was walking around the neighborhood with a clipboard, knocking on doors. “Why?” was the obvious question. They just shrugged. Turns out she was taking a poll to find out who they intended to vote for in the next election. Better than selling vacuum cleaners I guess.

When she was ten we moved into a new neighborhood – one with kids. This happened to coincide with her new found interest in the performing arts and before long she was hard at work: writing, casting, directing, acting and producing a play. It might have been a musical. One summer day a steady stream of neighbors began arriving at the front door – some of whom we had never met. They had tickets in hand and they were there for the “show” – one in which their children had landed starring roles. Sarah appeared and pointed them to the basement, handing out the hand-made programs as they filed past her. “You might need to set up some folding chairs,” she instructed me.  “And put out some cookies for intermission.” Got it. They played to a packed house who cheered loudly and applauded wildly and when the reviews were in, they were universally favorable though the show closed before it ever made it to off Broadway.

It was because of her that I began directing high school theatre – something I went on to do for twenty years. She gave me courage to tackle an overwhelming and intimidating task and figure it out as I went – to trust my instincts and to honor the process of creativity. She taught me that.

She went to a small college that really had no theatre department but by the time she left she had built up a whole program and when she graduated they hired her to carry it on. In the beginning she acted, directed, produced, designed and built the sets, made the programs, procured the facility, collected the props – all of it (just like when she was ten years old). In the early years if it got done, it’s because she did it. But to me this is the truly remarkable part: she so inspired others and mentored them that they took  on responsibility and leadership and she passed on her love of the art to them. I saw every show she was in and every show she directed in those years and I was in awe of her every single time.

And what also became abundantly clear in those days is that she is one of the most hard-working people I know and she is a natural leader. This she has proven at every job she has ever held.

The other thing I have learned from her is that artistry resides in the soul – not in the equipment. Put her behind a camera and she will capture the moment, the person, the emotion, the beauty or the story every time. She “sees” it and then allows us to do the same. It’s a gift and it doesn’t matter how much you spend on the camera, if you don’t have it then you don’t have it. I have always wished I could just hire her to come and follow me around and take pictures of my life because it would help me to see the mundane or the ordinary as the truly beautiful and extraordinary moments that they are.

And then there is this: she is a story teller. Whether it’s telling you about the man in the airport and their discussion about tattoos, or retelling an old family story, or her photograph of a little girl on the boogie board at the beach, or putting on a play in the basement, she is a master story teller. And we are blessed beyond measure to have her as a part of our story. Something tells me her best stories are yet to be written.

Happy Birthday, Sarah! You amaze me every day.