The best word to describe Shari is ‘serene.’

I learned that in 1986, when I met her. My first husband and I had separated and I knew I needed a place to live and she needed a roommate in her tiny, yet immaculate townhouse in Tempe.

What I didn’t know I needed, but got anyway, was a wonderful, dear friend who was a living example of what it was like to have one’s act together, to live so comfortably in one’s own skin, and to exhibit an aura so peaceful and well, serene that people were just drawn to her like moths to a light.

(Seriously. Men would walk up to her all. the. time. To the point where it was annoying. But they couldn’t resist. Nobody could.)

What I know she didn’t need, but got anyway, was a pretty sloppy roommate who didn’t know what the hell she needed, was drinking too much, and in all ways was a pretty spectacular example of someone who didn’t have her act together.

It was a standing joke between us that, if I was upset, I would start doing things to my hair…henna, blonding, that kind of thing. One night, I came home from a date in a foul mood and was stomping around the townhouse venting to myself like a neurotic T-rex. Shari emerged from her bedroom, obviously awakened from a sound sleep, reached under the sink and plopped a box of Summer Sun on the counter, and then disappeared, without a word, back into her bedroom.

Newly-highlighted, I reconciled with my husband. Shari got married. I had to start relying on other people to stuff a box of Summer Sun into my face when I was upset. We had our first babies the same year. She threw me a beautiful shower.

Over the years, we didn’t stay in touch so well, but her serenity shone out like a beacon from her new home in Chandler. Every time I visited, it was the same: immaculate and happy.

We had re-connected enough for me to know that she was ill, but when I visited her it seemed like nothing had changed. She was managing it, and if she was worried, refused to show it. Her family is just like her: serene and glowing.

Yesterday, right as I was starting work, her parents appeared. (They’re serene, too. There must be a gene for this.) Her father gave me an envelope: it was the kind of card you get at a funeral. Shari’s funeral, to be exact. She had passed away, quickly and unexpectedly, on April 6. She had passed away so quickly that there wasn’t enough time to find everyone (with Shari, there was a lot of everyone to find), and so I missed saying goodbye to her.

It is a huge irony that I missed this: the day Shari died, a very good friend of my teenaged daughter passed away in a car accident, and so I was looking in the obituaries that week, when normally I wouldn’t. I’m wracking my brain trying to remember if I caught even a glimpse of Shari’s tribute, but I’m coming up empty.

As I will be for a long time.

The fact that I didn’t see Shari one more time is my own fault; I cannot believe what it must have cost Elna and Phil in the midst of their own grief to come find me and I am so appreciative.

But I wish I had seen her. I don’t think she needed me. I have no doubt that Shari faced her death with the same serenity that she faced her life. But she saved my life once. I wish I could have returned that favor.