Speaker 1: Inside a fellowship hall at a church in Petersburg, Virginia.
Speaker 1: About fifty to a hundred people sit at long folding
Speaker 1: tables eating lunch. The church serves a community meal every Wednesday.
Speaker 1: On this day, a teenager who volunteers at the church
Speaker 1: is making her way around the table, saying hello to
Speaker 1: the guests. I'll call her Naomi. Naomi's not her real name,
Speaker 1: which she wanted to keep private. I just walk around
Speaker 1: and shake hands the star small toe, you know. For myself.
Speaker 1: I love the one people came in with children because
Speaker 1: you know, I get to pull you with her and
Speaker 1: what talks to things like that. She wants everyone to
Speaker 1: feel welcome, regardless of the circumstances that brought them to
Speaker 1: a meal at a church hall in the middle of
Speaker 1: the week. It's the spring of two thousand thirteen, three
Speaker 1: years before the incident at Camp Summit. Naomi is a
Speaker 1: nineteen year old college student at Virginia State University. The
Speaker 1: church is near campus. We talked about it, you know, Jesus,
Speaker 1: you know, um asking everybody you know, if you know,
Speaker 1: have a church home and things like that, not so
Speaker 1: much to recruit them on sut of church because we
Speaker 1: weren't member that the church. I say it was just
Speaker 1: about and saying she especially loves being a part of
Speaker 1: the church choir. She's at her happiest when she's singing.
Speaker 1: It's as if music is her direct connection to Heaven,
Speaker 1: we arning love. As she makes her way from person
Speaker 1: to person, she spots a woman sitting by herself. Naomi
Speaker 1: has never seen her before, and she's hard to miss.
Speaker 1: This is a traditionally African American congregation. The visitor is
Speaker 1: a white woman with short brown hair. She's wearing a
Speaker 1: sun dress, no makeup, and she seems well, she seems
Speaker 1: like somebody he's having a bad day. She kind of
Speaker 1: say it. She looked like she was out of it.
Speaker 1: We were there to witness, we were there to help,
Speaker 1: so you know, I took it upon myself to be
Speaker 1: time to reach out. The absolute first words that she
Speaker 1: said to me was giving me her name. She said
Speaker 1: my name was Sarah. So that was the first thing
Speaker 1: that she said to me. And she confides she's pregnant.
Speaker 1: As Sarah eats her lunch, she tells Naomi that her
Speaker 1: boyfriend is emotionally abusive to her, claims the baby isn't his.
Speaker 1: She says she's embarrassed to be in a church pregnant
Speaker 1: and unmarried. So immediately, like I said, my right off
Speaker 1: went off, because so is it somebody who really needs help?
Speaker 1: This somebody really probably just needs somebody. Naomi is deeply religious,
Speaker 1: and in that moment, she knows Sarah needs her. It's
Speaker 1: why God brought them together. She was, you know, along
Speaker 1: by herself, and I felt like, oh, I'm a helper.
Speaker 1: After the meal is done, they say goodbye and exchange numbers.
Speaker 1: A couple of days later, Naomi sends a text, how
Speaker 1: are you in the baby doing? Sarah answers it was
Speaker 1: super long. All her messages were always long. She could
Speaker 1: never send on one liner. It was always parag long,
Speaker 1: long paragrams in visceral detail. Sarah tells Naomi that she's
Speaker 1: having morning sickness and that her boyfriend isn't being supportive.
Speaker 1: Naomi feels for her. As the weeks passed, Naomi says
Speaker 1: she loves babies and that she herself has been adopted,
Speaker 1: and Sarah says, hey, I'm adopted too. They start to
Speaker 1: exchange texts every day. All day. I would always wake
Speaker 1: up two messages from her. No, you know whatever, time.
Speaker 1: It was even if I slept to seven, I wouldever,
Speaker 1: you know, if I sleep seven and eight, wake up
Speaker 1: is a message. It started coming in like four o'clock
Speaker 1: or something. So from then she protects me first, and
Speaker 1: it was always um about the baby, about you know
Speaker 1: how her night was, you know, things of their nature.
Speaker 1: Several times when I'll be going about my day as
Speaker 1: a student and if I take too long to text her,
Speaker 1: I would get like messages. They meet up a couple
Speaker 1: of times a week. She begins to reveal more to
Speaker 1: Naomi about her life, and it's weighty stuff for a
Speaker 1: college student to take in. Sarah says that she had
Speaker 1: been raised in foster care that should run away and
Speaker 1: been hauled back every time, even raped. She was never
Speaker 1: interested in my life story. So at a certain point
Speaker 1: it was like I just shut up because her life
Speaker 1: stuck way more than mine. So let me just help her.
Speaker 1: You know, everything she went through was a hundred a
Speaker 1: million percent worse. I'm a Christian. I told her so
Speaker 1: many times I don't have enough changes, and so see
Speaker 1: how how many times I told her that she can
Speaker 1: be sure God knows her name. As Sarah and Naomi's
Speaker 1: friendship deepens. She starts getting texts from Mason, the a friend.
Speaker 1: She portrayed him as a jerk, but he would text
Speaker 1: me and be like it was almost like he was
Speaker 1: the sweetest do ever. So I didn't know what to believe.
Speaker 1: So it was real confusing. That July, Naomi takes Sarah
Speaker 1: out to dinner for her birthday, to a seafood restaurant.
Speaker 1: It's a stretch for her student budget, but she wants
Speaker 1: her new friend to feel special. But even before they order,
Speaker 1: Sarah says she's feeling nauseated at the smell of the
Speaker 1: fish and races to the women's room. She owys in
Speaker 1: the bedroom to the last all the big one, and
Speaker 1: immediately like you also weren't even she's jagging and it's
Speaker 1: totally hugging and totally and I'm confided her the best
Speaker 1: I can, because I mean it was horrible and you know,
Speaker 1: she's all read and she's struggling. They leave without eating,
Speaker 1: but it's just as well since it wasn't Sarah's birthday anyway.
Speaker 1: She was actually born in December. A month later, in
Speaker 1: a barrage of rapid fire texts, Sarah tells Naomi that
Speaker 1: she's miscarried. She had been trying to reach Naomi the
Speaker 1: whole time she was in the stress, but Naomi was
Speaker 1: away from her phone. I feel horrible because the way
Speaker 1: that she has portrayed herself to be and somebody who
Speaker 1: has nobody, her baby father, Mason, is a piece of trash.
Speaker 1: She has abandonment issues and emotional issues. So here's somebody
Speaker 1: who has nobody's never had anybody, and she miscarried and
Speaker 1: I wasn't there for her. I'm like the only friend
Speaker 1: that I knew of in the world who was just like,
Speaker 1: really really there for She never had a mom, so
Speaker 1: she had the opportunity to be a mother, but she
Speaker 1: lost it. So I cried for all that I forgot
Speaker 1: crossfall those reasons because I know how much you mean
Speaker 1: tour Um. Not having a mother, wanted to be a
Speaker 1: mother meant a lot to her. So I cried to that.
Speaker 1: I cried because I wasn't there for he, and I
Speaker 1: just my heart went out to work. I just I
Speaker 1: was devastated. In September of two thousand thirteen, the brother
Speaker 1: of one of Naomi's good friends is killed. Her friend
Speaker 1: asked Naomi to sing at the funeral, but the day
Speaker 1: of the service, Sarah is having a meltdown something about Mason.
Speaker 1: She sits in Naomi's car sobbing. Nao Me misses the funeral.
Speaker 1: Sarah is soon expecting again. She seems to relish the
Speaker 1: role of a pregnant person in trouble. The second pregnancy
Speaker 1: appears just a month later, but Naomi's young and doesn't
Speaker 1: think twice about it. Sarah proudly shows her the ultrasound,
Speaker 1: She rubs her belly and talks to the baby. Naomi
Speaker 1: vows to be there for her this time. She absolutely
Speaker 1: loved being pregnant. The attention she got from me was
Speaker 1: top not It's as if Naomi has to constantly show
Speaker 1: Sarah what a good friend she is. From crisis to crisis,
Speaker 1: My life revolved around her, like for you every day
Speaker 1: from the moment I woke up. I'll put it that way,
Speaker 1: because of course, when I was sleep I can't answer,
Speaker 1: but when a moment I woke up, it was um.
Speaker 1: To be Sarah's friend is to be overwhelmed with one
Speaker 1: emotionally draining situation after or another, no time to really
Speaker 1: stop and reflect on her unbelievable space of bad luck.
Speaker 1: A few months later, in January of two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: Naomi gets a text from Sarah saying that she's gone
Speaker 1: to the bathroom and seen a lot of blood. Naomi panics, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was scared because, like I said, I didn't want it.
Speaker 1: I didn't want it to mister. I didn't want it
Speaker 1: to be nothing like that, because like I said, I
Speaker 1: saw it to go through the first time, and then
Speaker 1: she also played the whole Mason blames her so the
Speaker 1: baby being you know, she claimed he used to call
Speaker 1: her murderer. Sarah tells Naomi that she's going to the
Speaker 1: hospital and then one word messages pop up on Naomi's phone,
Speaker 1: scared blood. She tells Naomi that she's on her way
Speaker 1: to Southside Hospital. Naomi and another friend jump in her
Speaker 1: car and dashed to meet Sarah there, but when they
Speaker 1: get to the e R, the front desk says that
Speaker 1: no one has come in with a possible miscarriage. She
Speaker 1: spells Sarah's last name for the guy behind the desk,
Speaker 1: the lashman, and watches as he types it into the system.
Speaker 1: He looks up nothing. Naomi is confused. She sents Sarah
Speaker 1: a text Southside Hospital with a question mark minutes passed
Speaker 1: and Sarah does not respond. The silence is deafening, and
Speaker 1: then it just that's when it just hit me, waitness,
Speaker 1: she's nothing to me. That's like that had to be
Speaker 1: the only huge that may have been a moment that
Speaker 1: you know, God decided to show me because it nothing
Speaker 1: else may say. I think it was just meant for
Speaker 1: me to know right there in that moment, for whatever
Speaker 1: reason me doing that, it was just it was just
Speaker 1: meant for me to know the end that she was
Speaker 1: lying to me. Naomi asks her why she lied about
Speaker 1: going to the hospital. I never heard from R again.
Speaker 1: I promised you I ain't hear nothing else. She said nothing.
Speaker 1: It's when I asked her why she died, she said
Speaker 1: nothing else. Naomi gradually realizes that nothing Sarah told her
Speaker 1: had been real for years. She tries to process what happened,
Speaker 1: how her emotions had been toyed with, how she missed
Speaker 1: a funeral for someone she cared about over a lie.
Speaker 1: How could she believed all of it, all of Sarah's
Speaker 1: stories for so long. She was finally starting to put
Speaker 1: the ordeal out of her mind, until the day she
Speaker 1: learned that she was not the only one and all
Speaker 1: the feelings of betrayal came rushing back, and I was
Speaker 1: also like, Okay, so the other people here who you know?
Speaker 1: She made them feel like she made them feel like
Speaker 1: she made me feel And I just I didn't get it.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand, like, how one person, how one what?
Speaker 1: What did she get out of it? I realized it
Speaker 1: was a whole bunch of other people. I was like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: She'd been busy. A year and a half after Sarah
Speaker 1: vanished from nay Amy's life, she turned up at Camp Summit,
Speaker 1: the place she meant Bethany. But Bethany and the other
Speaker 1: camp staff weren't the only one shocked. The day that
Speaker 1: Sarah rose from her wheelchair and disappeared, there was one
Speaker 1: more person, and her life was about to be turned
Speaker 1: upside down. I'm Laura Belle. You're listening to Sympathy Pains.
Speaker 1: This is episode two. Aaron. In two thousand five, a
Speaker 1: full decade before Sarah arrived as a camper at Camp Summit,
Speaker 1: she volunteered to be a counselor at a similar place
Speaker 1: in southern California, a summer camp where people with disabilities
Speaker 1: could fully enjoy the outdoors. At the time, she was
Speaker 1: a junior in college. One of the campers that year
Speaker 1: was named Aaron Johnson. At twenty three, Aaron and Sarah
Speaker 1: were close to the same age. Aaron was born three
Speaker 1: months premature, weighing just two pounds. She has cerebral palsy,
Speaker 1: which affects her ability to speak and move. Good says
Speaker 1: that I had only me worse today. Aaron gets around
Speaker 1: with a wheelchair and lives in a boarding care home
Speaker 1: in southern California. She talks warmly about her childhood surrounded
Speaker 1: by great friends and parents who doated on her. I
Speaker 1: is very outgoing, compassionate about a lot. I've been told
Speaker 1: they'm very giving and very loving on Sundays. I'm not
Speaker 1: so sure that people who always tell me that's what
Speaker 1: I and I love psychology and dying two people and
Speaker 1: how they work. She first went to camp in two
Speaker 1: thousand four. She was a little scared at first, but
Speaker 1: the anxiety soon evaporated. The camp is about an hour
Speaker 1: and a half from Los Angeles in the San Bernardino
Speaker 1: National Forest, with towering trees and panoramic views of the mountains.
Speaker 1: A camper people with disabilities. It's very inclusive because out
Speaker 1: in the real world, like like a videos. Aaron tells
Speaker 1: me that it camps like this, a bond forms between
Speaker 1: counselor and camper that other people might not fully understand.
Speaker 1: There's a deep trust that comes from someone else tending
Speaker 1: to those things you need daily. If you disabled, people
Speaker 1: that take care of you, and they take care of
Speaker 1: you well, and they genuinely treat you like they care
Speaker 1: about you other than physically caring for you, you tend
Speaker 1: to really admire them very quickly, because you can be
Speaker 1: in situations where there are people who maybe don't take
Speaker 1: care of you the best. The camp was free being.
Speaker 1: Aaron really loved feeding and grooming the horses. The second
Speaker 1: year she went to camp, in two thousand five, she
Speaker 1: meant a new counselor named Sarah. Do you remember your
Speaker 1: first meeting? Oh, yeah, very well. She's very very quiet.
Speaker 1: It took her about ever the first saying on her
Speaker 1: I thought she's good to me because she was very quiet,
Speaker 1: very like drawn day shy. She talked about her family,
Speaker 1: saying that both her parents were doctors. Aaron remembers one
Speaker 1: thing that really stood out Sarah's eyes, the bluest eyes.
Speaker 1: One evening, a couple of days into camp, it was
Speaker 1: casino night. Aaron was in the recreation hall. She felt
Speaker 1: awkward because she couldn't manage the games by herself. Seeing
Speaker 1: Aaron looking uncomfortable, a staff member asked if she needed help.
Speaker 1: She said, Sarah over Aaron and Sarah hid it off
Speaker 1: right away. She wanted to go in all my antivities
Speaker 1: with me. When I couldn't sleep in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, I was with her, which she couldn't sleeve.
Speaker 1: She came to me. We always walked back to the
Speaker 1: cabinet after meals together. People used to joke that escessially
Speaker 1: that first year, that wish she was I was, and
Speaker 1: vice versa, like if you could find one of us,
Speaker 1: you found the other one. When the counselors took breaks,
Speaker 1: Sarah would come find Aaron. When it came time for
Speaker 1: Aaron to wash her hair, Sarah instantly volunteered. When Aaron
Speaker 1: would change from her wheelchair to the bed, Sarah would
Speaker 1: be by her side. They had a connection. They did
Speaker 1: fun things like play sports. No quite a few people
Speaker 1: that's show have pretty decent relation to the people that
Speaker 1: have been their counselors in the hat vice for so
Speaker 1: with the campers, especially if the campers are fully mentally
Speaker 1: aware and everything like that. It can be very bonding
Speaker 1: and kind of just brings you together and kind of
Speaker 1: just forms of friendship that tends to stay, if not
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life, for a room all time.
Speaker 1: At the end of the week, it came time to
Speaker 1: say goodbye. Sarah walked with Aaron to the parking lot
Speaker 1: where her parents were waiting by the car. It was
Speaker 1: very hard for us emotionally to leave. She was crying.
Speaker 1: Aaron introduced Sarah to her parents, rolled back closer and
Speaker 1: I said, Mom, this is Sarah. Can we keep her?
Speaker 1: And my mom kind of get Golden said sure. They
Speaker 1: did keep Sarah in their hearts, if not their home.
Speaker 1: The French a blasted another ten plus years, and Aaron
Speaker 1: got way more than she ever imagined. After their tearful
Speaker 1: departure in the parking lot, Aaron went home. When she
Speaker 1: opened up her bags to unpack, she found a surprise.
Speaker 1: Aaron had told Sarah that the combination of peanut butter
Speaker 1: and chocolate was her favorite candy, but Sarah had told
Speaker 1: Aaron that she had a severe peanut allergy and couldn't
Speaker 1: get near anything like that throughout my suit. In my
Speaker 1: purse in my bag, the peanut butter white up lady
Speaker 1: said a regularly. She thought, wow, Sarah risked anaphylactic shock
Speaker 1: just to make her happy. The camp was within driving
Speaker 1: distance of Aaron's house, so she went to see Sarah occasionally,
Speaker 1: each time with an emotional parting. Until Sarah had to
Speaker 1: return to college in Illinois. Aaron learned more about Sarah's life,
Speaker 1: and it was interesting. Did she tell you anything about
Speaker 1: her childhood? She had said that she had been playing
Speaker 1: boarding school when she was staying because her parents wanted
Speaker 1: her to be a competitive skier, an Olympic skier. In fact,
Speaker 1: her Olympic career was supposedly stopped, so she was going
Speaker 1: to be on the Olympic ski team. But then she
Speaker 1: got ebola. Yes, that was Sarah's first big lie to Aaron,
Speaker 1: after a series of smaller embellishments about her childhood. It
Speaker 1: was in September of two thousand five. Sarah had just
Speaker 1: returned to college. One day, she sent Aaron a message
Speaker 1: saying that she felt nauseated and had a high fever.
Speaker 1: She was heading to the doctor. Once she got there,
Speaker 1: she was immediately admitted for an infection with the abola virus. Well,
Speaker 1: I would imagine it was kind of shocking on your end.
Speaker 1: Supposedly there was this outbreaking St. Louis because of these
Speaker 1: monkeys they had they sected it at school, and Sarah's
Speaker 1: telling she was working at a lab dissecting monkeys infected
Speaker 1: with ebola and somehow she got infected. This was before
Speaker 1: the sweeping outbreaks in Africa dominated headlines. Aaron had never
Speaker 1: heard of ebola and really didn't think to google it.
Speaker 1: She just knew it sounded horrible. Besides, she loved Sarah
Speaker 1: and thought Sarah loved her, so she wasn't preoccupied with skepticism,
Speaker 1: just worry. And then Sarah told her that she wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to contact her for a while because the
Speaker 1: doctors were putting her into a coma so her body
Speaker 1: could better battle the infection. But Aaron kept getting updates
Speaker 1: about Sarah's condition from Sarah's little sister, Gabby. Her kid's
Speaker 1: sister also happened to be disabled. She used to wheelchair
Speaker 1: because she had a rare inherited neuromuscular condition called spinal
Speaker 1: muscular atrophy or s M. A. Gabby sent messages to
Speaker 1: Aaron saying that Sarah was still unconscious in the hospital.
Speaker 1: They spoke on the phone, having conversations about how worried
Speaker 1: they were. This went on for five weeks, and then
Speaker 1: what happens at the end of that five weeks the
Speaker 1: week Sarah, I've had the coma and Sarah has lost
Speaker 1: a good amount ror hearing because of the boy. She
Speaker 1: was talking to Gabby one day and Gabby suddenly got
Speaker 1: another call and she goes out, it's Sarah. Do you
Speaker 1: wanna Gabby asked if Aaron wanted a three way call
Speaker 1: so they could all talk. Aaron was thrilled. She hadn't
Speaker 1: spoken to Sarah since she had woken up from the coma.
Speaker 1: So Aaron was on a call thinking that she was
Speaker 1: speaking to both Sarah and her sister Gabby, but of
Speaker 1: course Sarah and Gabby were one and the same. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: So she pulled off a conversation where she's herself and
Speaker 1: another person in the same conversation. It's not the only
Speaker 1: time that takes a lot of discipline. In January of
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, in Aaron's world, Sarah was out
Speaker 1: of the coma, but she had complications from ebola. Not
Speaker 1: only was her hearing damaged, she now used a wheelchair
Speaker 1: because of the neurological complications from the infection. She told
Speaker 1: Aaron it was Gian Beret syndrome, an autoimmune reaction that
Speaker 1: actually can follow a viral infection, although it's rare. And
Speaker 1: then tragedy struck, Sarah told Aaron that Gabby had died
Speaker 1: of pneumonia. To Aaron, Gabby was real. She texted with her,
Speaker 1: talked to her, felt close to her because they both
Speaker 1: faced the challenges of an inaccessible world as wheelchair users.
Speaker 1: With Aaron's big, bottomless heart, she loved Gabby. She was
Speaker 1: her best friend's little sister. It was very hard. It
Speaker 1: felt like I actually lost someone that was a member
Speaker 1: of my family. And she played the part very very
Speaker 1: well on the grieving big sister. She played it so well.
Speaker 1: Sarah said that she was having a hard time getting
Speaker 1: over Gabby's death. So in March of two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: Sarah came to Aaron's house for spring break. Sir, he
Speaker 1: came to a house under the pretense that she could
Speaker 1: not deal with her little sisters death unless she saw me,
Speaker 1: because I was in person understand how much that she
Speaker 1: loved her sister, and she knew that her sister like
Speaker 1: that too. Sarah was good at that. You're the only
Speaker 1: one who really understands. Sarah arrived at Aaron's house using
Speaker 1: a wheelchair. They talked and hung out while Aaron's parents
Speaker 1: tried to spoil them to make them feel better. They
Speaker 1: grieved over Gabby. Aaron's grief was genuine. Sometime after springbreak,
Speaker 1: Sarah told Aaron that she had recovered from her ebola complications.
Speaker 1: After all she had gone through, she could walk again,
Speaker 1: and she wanted to return to the camp as a counselor.
Speaker 1: So a year after they first met, Aaron and Sarah
Speaker 1: were back together again. At the camp. Everyone knew like
Speaker 1: Sarah and I were insipable, so they put us together.
Speaker 1: The two of them had another great summer and returned
Speaker 1: to Illinois for her senior year of college. But soon
Speaker 1: after going back, Sarah had news she was pregnant. Aaron
Speaker 1: didn't know it then, but it would be the first
Speaker 1: of many. None of Sarah's pregnancies were ever no. Sarah
Speaker 1: told Aaron that she had briefly dated a guy who
Speaker 1: was a friend of Gabby's. He was out of the picture,
Speaker 1: but Sarah was pregnant with twins. One of the twins died,
Speaker 1: but the surviving baby had a heart condition, so he
Speaker 1: had surgery in utero and was born premature that spring.
Speaker 1: His name was Noah. Sarah said that she wanted Aaron
Speaker 1: to be his godmother. He ended up being okay, answer
Speaker 1: rising that at least she brought him home. He grew.
Speaker 1: He needed a couple of years go by. Sarah sends
Speaker 1: her snapshots as he's growing up. He's in struggling health,
Speaker 1: and eventually Sarah tells Aaron that he's going to need
Speaker 1: a heart transplant. Aaron worries about him deeply. This is
Speaker 1: her godson, after all, she refers to him as her nephew,
Speaker 1: and he had a heart transplant. One day in two
Speaker 1: thousand eight, Aaron was on the phone with a friend
Speaker 1: and Sarah tried to call. Aaron didn't answer, figuring that
Speaker 1: she would call Sarah back later, and then the frantic
Speaker 1: texts began. Noah was sick. She was rushing him to
Speaker 1: the hospital. Aaron immediately called back, stricken with worry. Sarah
Speaker 1: told her that he was rejecting his new heart. He
Speaker 1: was tethered to machines and then he died. Once again.
Speaker 1: Aaron had to mourn someone she loved, and she even thought,
Speaker 1: why does this keep happening? After that, for the rest
Speaker 1: of their friendship, there was not a time that Sarah
Speaker 1: was not the mother of several young children or pregnant.
Speaker 1: It was always multiples. And then my had I question that,
Speaker 1: and she would I don't know if I want to
Speaker 1: say smart enough, but she knew enough to have answers
Speaker 1: for everything before you or who else she was talking
Speaker 1: to was able to question them. Sarah was Aaron's best friend,
Speaker 1: and she considered all these babies her own. She even
Speaker 1: referred to them as her nieces and nephews. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten, Aaron was so excited to find out
Speaker 1: that Sarah was pregnant again, she posted a video to YouTube.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, most of you who know me perfectly know
Speaker 1: that one of the most important things in my life
Speaker 1: is my family, non biological or biological. I have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends who I considered to be family because
Speaker 1: I'm an only child. Watching it now, it's easy for
Speaker 1: Aaron to remember how she felt in that moment. I
Speaker 1: wanted to tell the whole world, you know, I have
Speaker 1: these amazing nieces and nephews and this amazing sister for
Speaker 1: all intensive purposes. There's a reason that Sarah was well
Speaker 1: versed in the lingo of pregnancies and could send Aaron
Speaker 1: real pictures of ultrasounds and sick babies. By two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: in Sarah's actual life, she had earned her nursing degree
Speaker 1: and was working in Oklahoma in a neo natal intensive
Speaker 1: care unit. Or any of these pregnancies that she had
Speaker 1: more memorable than any others, obviously the first one and
Speaker 1: then the cloud pregnancy. After the quad babies were born,
Speaker 1: Sarah had named one of the little girls after Aaron.
Speaker 1: She named one of the girls him my first name
Speaker 1: as her meddling, and then shortly after that baby was born,
Speaker 1: Sarah had news for Aaron, her namesake, who had been
Speaker 1: in the intensive care unit her whole life, had died,
Speaker 1: just like so many others. By early two thousand and fourteen,
Speaker 1: Sarah and Aaron had been friends for almost a decade.
Speaker 1: This was just after Sarah had disappeared from Naomi's life
Speaker 1: in Virginia. Naomi, you'll remember, is a friend who had
Speaker 1: supported her through an abusive boyfriend and two miscarriages. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Aaron was mourning the deaths of infants she loved his family,
Speaker 1: even though she never saw them. Sarah had excuses for
Speaker 1: why they couldn't come visit. They were with their grandparents.
Speaker 1: Traveling with little ones was too much trouble. The kids
Speaker 1: have colds. I'm sorry this happened to you, because I
Speaker 1: can't imagine multiple people you care about dying over a
Speaker 1: period of ten years or so. It just must have
Speaker 1: been incredibly difficult. It was very taxi at times. But
Speaker 1: I am very loyal to people who aren't care about
Speaker 1: and sometimes to your fault. Obviously, Sara seemed to find
Speaker 1: women like this who were loyal to their friends, even
Speaker 1: friends with roller coaster lives. Sarah wasn't just having pregnancy
Speaker 1: after pregnancy, in Aaron's eyes, she was also getting sick,
Speaker 1: once with a brain tumor that left Sarah unable to speak. Yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: are reading John not good at And so your mom
Speaker 1: would get on and Sarah would mouse the words, and
Speaker 1: your mom would tell you what Sarah said, and then
Speaker 1: you would answer. So your mom's in this in these
Speaker 1: conversations as well. During one of these skype calls, Aaron
Speaker 1: watched in horror as Sarah began to have a seizure.
Speaker 1: Aaron panicked everything and he wanted to jump through the
Speaker 1: screen and older hand, or give her a hug, or
Speaker 1: do something anything. And how long did this season go on?
Speaker 1: Probably thirty seconds or maybe a little. At one point,
Speaker 1: after they've been friends for a few years, Sarah returned
Speaker 1: to using a wheelchair. She said she had developed s M, A,
Speaker 1: the same rare condition that Gabby had. She came to
Speaker 1: visit Aaron during that time and stayed for more than
Speaker 1: a week. Aaron's mom, who also by this time loved Sarah,
Speaker 1: was a caregiver to both women. Even though she herself
Speaker 1: was not feeling well, she still struggled do those nineties
Speaker 1: to do what she needed to do to make sure
Speaker 1: that we got to visit and do some things together
Speaker 1: now we wouldn't normally get to do. In two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: Aaron's mom passed away. Aaron descended into a deep depression.
Speaker 1: As the family made funeral plans, Aaron's dad secretly arranged
Speaker 1: for one thing that he thought would make Aaron feel better,
Speaker 1: a surprise visit from Sarah. Shortly before her mom's funeral.
Speaker 1: Aaron was in her room, lying on her bed when
Speaker 1: she heard someone say, does anyone need a sister. Aaron
Speaker 1: looked at her phone, recognizing Sarah's voice and thinking she
Speaker 1: had accidentally dialed her up. And then Aaron looked around
Speaker 1: to see Sarah smiling in her wheelchair, and I just
Speaker 1: was stunned for a few seconds, and then I was like, Sisty,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here? She's like, what do you
Speaker 1: think I'm doing here? Aaron gonna go to Wealth Service
Speaker 1: with your mom. I'm not gonna let you go by
Speaker 1: your's tail. Sarah was wearing pink, so was Aaron. It
Speaker 1: had been Gabby's favorite color. Pink was the only color
Speaker 1: in the world, basically for both of us. The next year,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and fifteen, Sarah went to Camp Summit.
Speaker 1: She arrived decked out in pink. She told Aaron all
Speaker 1: about it. Aaron wanted to go to so they made
Speaker 1: plans to attend together the following summer. In two thousand sixteen,
Speaker 1: Aaron bought her plane tickets and registered. Aaron was especially
Speaker 1: excited to meet Sarah's favorite counselor, Bethany. Bethany was the
Speaker 1: one person I wanted to meet more than anything, because
Speaker 1: Sarah talks so highly of her and how she took
Speaker 1: give her and what a sweet person she was, which
Speaker 1: is all true. And then that spring, Aaron's dad got
Speaker 1: a call from the camp director. She said, I know
Speaker 1: your daughter and Sarah are friends. There's something you need
Speaker 1: to know about Sarah, and they broke the news. Sarah
Speaker 1: wasn't disabled, never had been. Aaron was stunned. So then
Speaker 1: he starts telling me about Sarah and my head's one
Speaker 1: and I was like, wait, no, that's not too Her
Speaker 1: dad said he thought she should call Sarah, but he
Speaker 1: warned her, don't accept her to be honest, because she's
Speaker 1: never really been honest with you. But maybe just in
Speaker 1: the way that she answered you, you can kind of
Speaker 1: get some closer and kind of realized why this is
Speaker 1: all happening and what kind of person she really was.
Speaker 1: They talked. Aaron remembers Sarah in tears, telling her that
Speaker 1: she never meant to hurt her. What did you say
Speaker 1: to her? I told her that it never would have
Speaker 1: mattered what your life was, didn't matter if your family
Speaker 1: was messed job where they're both your parents when doctors.
Speaker 1: If not of this were true, it wouldn't have mattered
Speaker 1: as long as you were as nice as you pluetraated
Speaker 1: yourself to be at camp. Aaron would have been Sarah's
Speaker 1: friend if she hadn't been an Olympic skier or a
Speaker 1: bereft mother, or someone with a disability or brain cancer.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, it wasn't enough for Sarah to
Speaker 1: just be Sarah. I think she saw us go to
Speaker 1: camp and be loved and taken care of and treated
Speaker 1: like we were special in getting extra care and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I think she in some extent wanted that because something,
Speaker 1: in some ways, maybe some of that was missing in
Speaker 1: her life and she was looking for that. She just
Speaker 1: right the wrong way about it. Either that she's just
Speaker 1: evil me and Bethany and so many other people who
Speaker 1: didn't really she amally take money from, but our hearts
Speaker 1: and our most our families and everything that money can't buy.
Speaker 1: Even after Bethany, Aaron, Naomi and there were others, Sarah
Speaker 1: wasn't finished. But her victims were about to find one another,
Speaker 1: and that would change everything. I think that we were
Speaker 1: both absolutely in shock at turning over the stone and
Speaker 1: just seeing the enormity of it, the situation, how vast
Speaker 1: and wide and deep and complex it was. But you
Speaker 1: were fearful to like of just to be clear, some
Speaker 1: kind of like fatal attraction moment, like she was going
Speaker 1: to turn and just be. We were very afraid, and
Speaker 1: both of the um police officers warned us to be.
Speaker 1: I was terrified. I was terrified. That's on the next
Speaker 1: episode of Sympathy Pains. Sympathy Pains is a production of
Speaker 1: Neon Hum Media and I Heart Radio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Laura Beale I wrote and reported the episodes. Natalie Wrinn
Speaker 1: is the lead producer. Our editor is Katherine st. Louis.
Speaker 1: Associate producer is Rufaro Mazzarua. Our executive producer is Jonathan Hirsch.
Speaker 1: Samantha Allison is our production manager. Fact checker is Jacqueline Colletti.
Speaker 1: Jesse Perlstein composed the theme song and music heard throughout
Speaker 1: the series. Additional tracks are by Epidemic Sound. Scott Somerville
Speaker 1: is our engineer and sound designer. Special thanks to Stephanie
Speaker 1: Serrano from I Heart Radio. Special thanks to Carry Lieberman
Speaker 1: and beth Ann Macaluso. Exact getive producer at I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio is Dylan Fagan.