As I sit in a Starbucks on Union Avenue in Memphis, I am reminded of how quickly time seems to be moving these days. I just dropped my best friend off at the UT Health Science Center for her first series of med school interviews, and I can hardly hold back the tears as I think about how proud I am of her.
I mentioned Jia in my first post, and I suppose now it is time for me to really tell you all about her.
Jia and I met in the seventh grade, and the story behind our meeting is really quite definitive of our relationship over the years. I had transferred to a different school that year and didn't know anyone. My natural tendency when I don't know anyone or am in a new situation is to say random things at random times and pretend like I know what's going on. I've figured out as the years have gone by that it's a coping mechanism for me when I feel insecure. Blurt out something clever and nobody will know how terrified you are, you know?
So that first day of seventh grade. The first teacher I met was Mr. Rhodes, a gangly wisp of a man who talked too fast and used his hands too much. When he got to the end of the roll, his breakneck pace was broken by Jia's name. "Uh... Jeeya? Jeeya Yai?" There was indeed no Jeeya Yai to be found in the classroom. After social studies came reading, and the rickety Ms. Jones had the same trouble at the end of roll call. "Jayah? Jayah Yee?" (At least she got the last name right.) After a few moments, a student at the back of the room spoke up. "Jia isn't here today, she's still in China." So each class after that, when the teacher mispronounced Jia's name, I spoke for her. "Oh, Jia? She's in China visiting her family." As if we'd been friends our entire lives. Classic Lyndsi.
Because I had transferred schools and the teachers didn't know what class levels I belonged in, I had an entirely different schedule by the time Jia returned from China the following week. I was delighted to discover, however, that she was still in chorus class with me, and I made sure to introduce myself the instant I saw her cute round face. It was just my luck that she ended up being the sister that I never had. But I made sure to not tell her about the pretending-to-know-her thing until she knew for sure that I'm not a complete lunatic. (Meaning about four months ago.)
As I said before, Jia is in the process right now of interviewing/applying for medical school. Most of you probably assume that she's a supergenius, and she is definitely brilliant in many respects. But that brilliance is by no means my favorite thing about her. I happen to think her awkward sense of humor is hysterical, especially when nobody else understands what she's talking about. And some of my absolute favorite quoatable moments have occured with her.
We had every single class together our freshman year in high school, and at least four together each year after that. We walked to and from school together for a year and a half becasue our neighborhoods were connected. So we spent basically nine hours a day, five days a week together during our formative social years. The only real feedback I got from any human being in regards to my sense of humor or thoughts about music or society in general were from Jia. Sure I had a few other acquaintances that I tried to substitute for a real best friend, but at the end of each broken relationship stood Jia with a smile on her face, blissfully unaware that I had strayed away to begin with. That's probably my favorite thing about being friends with Jia, in fact. There is absolutely no pressure to be anything other than exactly who I am at any given moment. I can talk and talk and talk about nothing for close to an hour, and Jia just says "Lyndsi, is that really practical?" And I love her for it.
Another important thing you need to know about my JiaJia is a lot less funny and a lot more serious. It also speaks volumes about her character and I think proves that the hand of God has been on both our lives for a very very long time. During the later part of seventh grade, Jia's mother was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. I won't go into details about this, as it was an extremely personal experience in our friendship, but I will say that those four years of watching Jia struggle with her mother's illness absolutely changed my view of life.
Her mother passed away the summer before our senior year in high school, and I wouldn't trade anything for the time that I got to spend with Jia and her family during that time. It may sound morbid of me, but I can't remember ever feeling better about myself. Knowing that I could be there for Jia and her sister gave me a sense of purpose that I needed badly during that time and I have learned to value that in many other aspects of my life. And although I spent most of senior year trying to run from the pain that I felt afterwards, I look back on that period of time as the most precious of my life thus far. My grandmother went through a very similar progression of her lung cancer when I was younger, and it was no irony that we became friends just a year after I lost my beloved Mama-T to the exact same illness. I believe that God placed us in eachother's lives for a reason, and I thank Him each and every day for having blessed me so much in that way.
To see how Jia has risen above the pain and anger of losing her mother at seventeen; to see how hard she works to make her own dreams of becoming a doctor come true so that she can help others that are faced with such tragic circumstances... She inspires me every single day. So when I dropped her off and watched her walk away in her "power suit" to her first interview, I couldn't help but think about how proud her mother would have been to see her daughter becoming such an amazing woman. Even in this moment, I cannot express how proud I am to call her my friend.
It's crazy, that first meeting of ours was a little more than 9 years ago. Time is truly flying. So much has happened to me in the last ten years, and I cannot wait to see where this thing called life takes me next. If it's anything like what I've experienced so far, I think I've definitely got something to look forward to.
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