December 18, 2025

The year was 1981, and I was five years old. The two kindergarten classes would sometimes get together for music or story time. I was a painfully shy child who didn’t make friends easily. But then I saw the girl with short brown hair (just like mine) wearing the same exact denim dress I was, with a cloth lion face sewn onto it. And that was all it took for us to start talking and be friends.

She lived in the country, on a ranch. I lived in a tiny town that only had houses, a church and three roads. We really only saw each other at school for the first few years. Neither of us really made friends easily but there were a couple of other girls we talked to. They grew into good friends, but Lisa and I were the best of friends.

We spent weekends at each other’s houses. We listened to mostly country music, rode horses or the four wheeler at her home, rode bikes around town when I moved to a bigger town after 6^th grade. We even went to church camp a few times together… before I realized church and religion wasn’t for me. And we got into trouble together on several occasions. And her driving terrified me… but she loved to drive fast and was a bit reckless.

Our friendship was like a lot of close friendships… we had our fights and we made up. We grew apart, I moved away, we reconnected. I moved to Texas, she got married then divorced and moved to Colorado, then back to Iowa.

When I finally moved back to Iowa in July of 2020, I didn’t know then that I would only have a few more months with my very first best friend, my first non-biological sister. It wasn’t long enough. In December of 2020 she had a stroke and was hospitalized. She was starting to recover, but visitors were restricted because of Covid. Only biological family. She was recovering one moment and then… she was gone. I think she had a second stroke, I don’t know. Her family doesn’t talk to me.

Lisa Anne Young. April 22, 1975 to December 18, 2020. She was exactly one year, one month and one day older than me, but I was the more grown up one. She had learning disabilities and a lot of emotional trauma from her mother and her ex husband. She struggled with self esteem and weight her whole life. But she was my friend, my sister. And I miss her like crazy.

This is us for one of her birthday parties at our favorite pizza place- Zeno’s. I’m on the left, she’s on the right. I cut out the other person in the picture for privacy reasons.

We used to go to Three Bridges together to walk the trail and hang out by the river. She was always climbing trees. We used to do it a lot as kids but my body was too damaged to even attempt it in our mid 30s. It didn’t stop her though. In this one, the tree won- it stole her shoe!

Her favorite country artists were Garth Brooks and George Strait. I was going to try and share a couple of songs in this blog… but I can’t just pick one favorite of each artist.

Unfortunately a lot of our pictures when we were young are lost to me. But the memories are still in my head. I don’t know for how long. Perhaps I should start journaling them, so that I don’t forget.

Miss you always, sis…