Libby Hills

When I sit and think about it, I have known a lot of crazy people in my life. No surprise right? We all know someone who is crazy, but I never thought the craziest person I'd ever meet would end up not only being one of my closest friends, but also a family member. Her name is Elizabeth Handel aka Liz Handel.

In August of 2011, just two months after I graduated from high school, I started my first semester at Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, North Carolina. The first class I had there was English 111. Sitting to the right of me in this class was a girl who went by the name "Liz". She wore glasses and had her hair cut short, but didn't have short hair, if that makes sense. Our teacher's name was Mr. Depolo, he was a very funny and interactive dude. More than anyone else in the class, me and Liz liked joking and picking with him the most, especially because she made note that he seemed like he had ADHD. While poking fun at Mr. Depolo, me and Liz eventually started interacting with each other throughout the semester. Little by little we became friendly with one another before the semester ended and we parted ways. At the time I really just looked at her like an after thought and didn't care about whether I was going to see her again or not.

After having a semester off due to my financial aid being in a messed up situation I made it back to GTCC for the summer and fall semesters of 2012. By January of 2013 I was beginning my second full time semester. My schedule was Tuesdays and Thursdays and the last class of the day I had was Introduction to film. On the first day of the semester I was standing outside of class waiting for it to start when to my surprise Liz Handel walked in right behind me and said "hey aren't you that kid that sat next to me in English 111?" As the semester was getting underway me and Liz decided to sit by each other and interact with one another given our prior history. As we became more interactive with each other our small talks and jokes gradually turned into serious venting sessions. Midway through the semester Liz started going through a rough patch in her personal life and asked if I could help her with classwork from time to time, eventually we exchanged numbers and started following each other on social media and from there, that was the beginning of our bond. By the end of the semester, we had an unspoken establishment of our friendship and decided we take another class together again in the fall of 2013.

As our friendship was growing, I started to learn a lot about Liz. First she told me that one of her nicknames back in her hometown of Orlando, Florida was Libby, so I started calling her by that, much to her amusement. The thing about Liz is she's a very intriguing person. She has a fiery and brutally honest personality, much to the discomfort of others. Sometimes she can rub one the wrong way, but she means no harm ever...mostly. Her sense of humor is very over the top and sometimes consist of licking windows and inappropriate laughter, but if you remain open minded she’ll leave you with some memorable laughs. She is very hardened on the outside because a lot of her life experiences, but at the same time she has a great heart and she is very generous, loving and is really a mushy teddy bear underneath her “Bad Moms” exterior. During our last semester in school together I didn't have a car yet and she gave me a ride almost everyday. The people around me who knew of her, but didn't know her would tell me that she must be a really great friend, she was always that and more. Liz also has a son named Caleb, even when life was tearing her down she has always been a loving and supportive mother to Caleb, raising him to be a responsible, hardworking young man, and a loving young boy.

After she graduated from GTCC a new chapter in life started for both of us. I was still working my way towards graduation, but fell into a pitfall of financial aid trouble and was stuck out of school and she had just fell out with a friend and needed someone to help watch Caleb. It was during this time we grew from being friends to family. I basically ended up staying at her house more than my own and would babysit Caleb for her on the regular, which kept us around each other all the time. The thing about the two of us is we really are a couple stomach aches and head aches in a pod. We were always arguing and getting on each other's nerve for even the smallest of things. We would cuss each other out and have the most heated exchanges with one another. Even so, all of this was just part of the composition of our bond.

At the end of the day we were there for each other during the toughest of times. When one of my aunts who I was very close with passed away Liz refused to leave my side and comforted me every second in the time after. Her son Caleb, who is like a nephew to me also comforted me. This is just how good of a loving heart she has, one moment you wanna knock her upside the head, but the next minute you love her to death because she loves you to death. When I finally got a job and made it back in school we definitely started missing each other because we went from seeing each other almost every day to seeing each other very little, but she always made it clear that we were family and that her home was always a home to me. On the day I finally graduated from college she was sitting right there in the front row at my graduation with Caleb cheering me on and told me afterwards that if I ever needed a place to stay that I could come live with her. To put it best her words are "Joe you are family and you will always have a home here".

Over the years Liz has gone from being an amazing person to being an even more amazing person. When we first started being friends I always thought the hardest thing for her to say was "I love you" because I had never heard her say it before, even to her own family. Fast forward nearly a decade later she never parts ways with me, whether it be in person or over the phone, without saying "I love you". Liz is crazy, but kind and looney, but loving. She has a generous heart and has went out of her way to help others even when she was struggling herself. She embraces all people, even when it's hard for them to embrace her. When she tells you that you're a loved one for life, she really means it. No matter how many times she has driven me crazy, she will always have a place in my heart and I love this walking stomach ache named Libby Liz to the moon and back.

--Dedicated to a part of my heart, my sister Elizabeth Handel.