Jack and I went to Sonny’s wedding in NYC today.  Robin and Patrick were there too.  Seeing Sonny so happy makes me happy.  I know it makes Robin happy too.  Jack didn't really want to go since he doesn't particularly care for Sonny (so he'll fit right in with my family!).  But he's always been very considerate of our friendship.  As has my family, really.  Reluctantly, but they have.  Patrick too, actually.  They know what Sonny means to me.  And Robin.  I'm really glad we all went.

I was just sitting there in that church looking at Sonny on the altar and all I could think about was the first time we really met.  My mother was fighting breast cancer and Stone was dying.  My famliy constantly shut me out.  I know they didn't want to scare me but I was already scared.  My mother was sick and my friend was going to die.  But they thought if they didn’t show me their own fears, I wouldn’t have a reason for harboring my own.  Like, somehow, I wouldn’t notice how messed up everything had become and I wouldn’t be afraid.  But I was.  I was 8 years old.  I knew Stone was dying and I thought my mother was next.  The day I met Sonny, my father took me to the hospital to see my mother.  She was very weak from the chemo and my father asked me to sit in the hall while he and my brothers talked to the doctors.  I guess he thought that since he was the Chief of Staff and everyone knew who I was, I wouldn’t be able to wander off.  But I couldn’t just sit there.  So I wandered.  And I found myself in the hospital chapel.  I went to the altar and I pleaded with God to save my mother.  To stop what was happening to Stone from happening to my mother.

I sat there feeling scared and alone.  Like no one in the world could help me.  And there was Sonny.  I didn’t even hear him come in, maybe because I was crying, but it was as if he just appeared out of nowhere.  He comforted me.  Talked to me.  Told me everything was going to be OK even if he didn’t necessarily believe it.  It’s all I had wanted to hear.  What I needed to hear.  He was consumed with grief over what was happening to Stone, but he managed to comfort a scared little girl.

Since then Sonny and I have always shared a certain closeness.  Robin has a similar relationship with Sonny because of Stone.  I can’t describe what his being there, on that day, in that chapel, has meant to me.  And I know Robin feels the same way.  That’s why neither of us could ever turn our backs on Sonny.