For You, Sister

This is a love letter for the sister who is a sister in every way except by blood. This is a love letter for my oldest, wisest, most beautiful friend whose laughter is, as far as I'm concerned, all the proof I need that humankind is good. Nothing in my life will ever compare to the long afternoons we've spent stacking rocks in the South Fork of the Tuolumne River or telling stories underneath the stars or watching my cat wedge her head into a drinking glass to get the water at the bottom. Cloud's Rest, our tire swing routine, making up alternate lyrics to popular cereal commercial jingles in the car, feeding the sheep, sunbathing on Breakfast Rock, weaving pine needle baskets, touching the tree at Naco, shouting "SWITCH!" during the Chicken Dance on the volleyball court, endless matches of badminton, ferry rides to and from Orcas. These and so many more are the moments in which I realize that despite war and hunger, poverty and disease and suffering, as long as my best friend is in this world it will always be an astonishing, stupefying, miraculous place. 

I love you, Sara Maria Jacobson.