Remembering Sienna Farr

I remember a little girl with the brightest, happiest, biggest brown eyes, framed by curling brown hair that turned gold every summer.

I remember a spunky, diminutive toddler, playing tonka trucks with my sons and her sister in our sand box. The truck was nearly as big as she was but she handled it with aplomb, delightedly building and destroying and crashing into everyone else's vehicles and loving every second of it.

I remember a cheerful, adventurous kindergartener sledding right at the front of a group of four down a huge steep hill that scared the tuna salad out of me,  the adult riding in the back.

I remember an inquisitive kid whose imagination brought dinosaurs back to vivid life, who ran the length of a diplodocus on a summer day (100 feet between her mom and me, holding the tape measure), who had a pet life-size dilophosaurus hiding behind a bush in her backyard.

I remember a strong girl who climbed way, way higher in a magnolia tree than I ever would have thought a kid could climb. I remember her building a beautiful fairy garden out of leaves, wood chips, sand, flowers - and telling stories about the fairies and making me feel like fairies really would come and live there because she believed they would.

I remember watching for hours as this kid ran her trains around and around and around and around on the train table and on the floor and on the dining room table and pretty much on every surface a train's wheels could run on.

I remember my best opponent at Clue, my partner-in-crime in finishing off the bag of pretzels (and the popcorn, and the chips), my guide through Rock Creek Park bouldering and Sligo Creek boot-stomping.

I remember a kid who loved pink - **loved pink** and Frozen and furry, fuzzy lions. A kid who shared her beloved toys with my kids because she loved them and thought they'd love them too and even gave them to my daughter when after probably five years she finally didn't feel like belting "Do you want to build a snowman?" every 10 minutes anymore.

I remember a girl who stood her ground, who showed me to stand my ground when I just wanted to please everyone and make them like me by giving in, apologizing, or sucking up. She showed me I could stand my ground and people would still like me and still be friends with me and even if they didn't, we could still work together and tolerate each other and most of all, we could learn from each other. I learned so much from you, Sienna. I learned that every person is a lot of things, with many interests and many, many ideas, and that although we like to compartmentalize to create "this or that" - you were always "this AND that."  Always. 

And I will always remember you. 

Sienna Farr was a beloved lifelong friend and one of Princess Awesome's first models, before our Kickstarter, before we were much more than a dream and a few dresses made of tee shirts and quilting material. She died in a fire that also seriously injured her mother on August 11, 2023, aged 13.