“Brian O’Keefe. Floral Park. Pleased to meet you!” somehow rolled out between my lips into the air in front of me. Say what?! Yes, I did. To a girl. In college. On my very first day. While weirdly endlessly shaking her hand. It was my spontaneous nervous Tourettes-ish and peculiarly formal reaction to seeing the young woman in front of me, who most certainly was, well – um, different.

She was like many of us at Marist College back then: Irish. (or Italian. or German) ) Freckle Faced. (or Not.) From Long Island or Connecticut. Or Jersey. But she was different..by just one little detail.

Her height…which was only a couple feet off from the rest of us. She was, in fact, a dwarf. Not a midget. But a real live living and breathing little person. She was three feet and nine and a half inches tall. I had never met such a person and panicked and didn’t know what to say until that ridiculous salutation left my mouth and greeted her that afternoon in Donnelly Hall —outside Peter Amato’s Ethics classroom at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY in September of 1982. At 3:30 pm. And 10 seconds. ( And it was partly cloudy….I believe 68 degrees…ok, enough)

I remember that moment as clear as day. My savant-ish recollection of it is a testament of the impact this woman would have on my life and for many others. For years we laughed and re-enacted my silly hallway “hello” and would dissolve into giggles. Laughter was our friendship’s soundtrack. In fact, most of my memories of her involve laughter.

One time she choked and hiccuped while drinking apple juice. The hiccups went on forever and were replaced by the loudest laughter…also endless. We couldn’t even look at apple juice the same way again. With our posse of friends Denise, Nancy, Kathy, Dara, Sabrina, Kim, Rick, me and a boatload of male athletes (men just loved her) fits of laughter were pretty much a daily thing, day and night. Sprinkle in some liquor (rum especially) and beer and our life was one big endless episode of “Laugh In”. I kid you not.

But, life for Elizabeth Ann Newman, of Massapequa Park, NY wasn’t a bowl of apples – or cherries. Nor was it always fun or funny. In fact, her childhood was filled with bullies, ridicule and kids saying the meanest things you cannot even imagine. As she grew older, children at the mall called her “the Monster”. She was stared at C O N S T A N T L Y. It wasn’t easy growing up little.

But she was a tough cookie from New York Irish stock who developed her own life’s armor. She would tell us that when the kids called her “monster”, she’d sometimes run toward them screaming and delivering them a ghoulishly scary monster roar. One those kiddies will never forget! We would die laughing as she recounted this. She would actually laugh about life with disability and difference. I believe that in a way she laughed through life to dissolve, reduce or hide the pain and challenge of being different.

Only few of us knew of her pain….but we all saw her incredible courage. After all, there was no time for a pity party. Lizzie had life to live. A world to travel. A career to pursue. Men to fall in love with. Not a thing would get in her way. Nothing. Hurdles, for our Liz, were meant to be jumped over….or ducked under. She overcame every single one of them like an Olympian of Life. She mattered and made a difference and was also an inspiration to people of all walks of life including others with disabilities of any kind. And those of us without.

That’s right. Despite her diminutive frame and her closeness to the ground, Liz was a giant of a human being with an even bigger heart and soul which were closer to heaven then the rest of us. She wasn’t book smart but, like no other, she could see right through people, situations, crises and bullshit. And she could drink you under the table! (But not be able to walk though, afterwards.)

Liz really wasn’t disabled in any way, save reaching for the top shelf at Pathmark. Even though her spinal cord in essence was twisted or malformed, which caused some numbness and eventually a need for a walking cane, (and which sadly foreshadowed what was to come later in life, unbeknownst to all of us.) Again: that didn’t stop Liz. She had a license and car a couple years before I did! With custom-made hand controls she got around like all of us. In fact, she drove US around.

She truly was our center and for years the human glue that held our group of friends together as we headed into decades of careers, families, life events and much more. Back at Marist, her Champagnat Hall corner room that looked out over the campus was like a living room for a dozen of us. “Where’s Liz?” was an echo in that dorm hallway that no doubt annoyed some neighbors. Liz— basically — was everything.

She dreamed of becoming a photographer and in her early twenties, eventually got a job at Showtime Networks and did that grueling commute every day into the dead, (but lively,) center of Manhattan. Not easy for a little person limping with a cane through the Big Apple’s rush hour masses, who were all two or three feet taller than her!

We all somehow learned from her struggle and strength. Even just by living her life, she gave us so many life lessons. One lesson for me was that I needed to love myself first….”Brian, you have to love yourself and stop worrying about what other people think,” I hear in the cavern of my head with clearest of sound….thirty years on. For her family and friends, she loved you and she loved you fiercely. She had several older friends, friends with lots of life experience which no doubt fueled Liz with strength and wisdom….which we were lucky to witness.

Her parents, Phillip, a retired NYC fireman, and mom, Florence, a homemaker, were also much older than the rest of our parents. And one of her dearest friends was her next door neighbor: Bridey Goldstein. Bridey was as beautiful and colorful as her name. As Irish as Irish Soda Bread…and when Bridie spoke, with her gorgeous soft as a pillow brogue, all listened (because there was no other option!)…Liz listened and would quote Bridey often.

As we neared 30 …..some of us started lives and families a few states away and across the country, and one day Liz shocked us with very big news. Very very big news. She was pregnant. Her doctors weren’t thrilled with it and feared having a baby might hurt her body— and perhaps the baby’s. With a 50 percent chance of the baby being born “little” …Lizzie had a lot to ponder. The baby would be mixed race, since the father was African-American. She’d also be raising the baby alone.

She really wanted this baby….to love, nurture and raise. And with the bonus of her loving circle, Bridey included, her parents, and her siblings, Liz went through with the birth, bringing all of us the most beautiful little girl, Alanna. Although she wasn’t born “little”, she was an adorable bundle of love.

Little did this beautiful girl know how much love she brought the world by simply being born. Her older and rather Conservative Irish grandparents, who one might not expect to embrace a mixed-race child, were over the moon with her. They loved when Liz traveled or went away so they could get their Alanna time. In fact Mr. Newman would push Alanna in the stroller for hours, a shock to his feisty wife who told me, ”How do you like that…Phil never once pushed a pram when I was raising my kids. Never…ever…ever …not once did he…!” But my favorite Flo quote remains: “Isn’t she gorgeous, Brian? She is such a beautiful child….I can’t stand it!” And she was. I’ll never forget the gasps of my sisters when they first laid eyes on her. As Alanna grew up, Liz marked every milestone with pictures and parties, just like every other mom.

As the years went by, time marched on and the glue started to dissolve and trickle away from Little Liz’s posse. Something was also was happening to our Liz…..and her precious body. Aging for her was significantly different, as her spine continued to be scrunched up into her small frame. And after some fusions and surgeries there was little left to do. But very few of us, if anyone, knew this….or for sure where this would end.

Somewhere in our early 40’s I flew across country to surprise Liz after a particularly important spine surgery…it may have been the final attempt to stave off full paralysis. Sometimes surprises like that do not work. And, goodness, did Lizzie ever give me a life lesson….and a terribly painful life memory. ”What are you doing here?”… “Who told you…and who told you to come here?,” she scolded me. Speechless, I managed to sputter: “Why don’t you want me to know?” and after the most awful long silence, I badgered: “Why do you not want me here,?” “It’s personal, Brian!” “I’m sorry but I don’t want anyone here!” And after the most painful silence of my life, neither of us said another word to each other. Forever.

That was the last time I ever saw Little Liz.

As we all sailed along that glacial yet speedy turnpike of our 40’s, Liz did not seem to be in lock step with us anymore. It remains a mystery, though some of us thought that she didn’t want the pain of seeing us…see her… in that worsening condition. Her paralysis worsened and she moved into a rehabilitation nursing home while her family kept close watch of Alanna, in high school and college….with Liz’s motherly love never faltering.

I know what you’re thinking…that this is painful to read. How does this story…and this essay end?

Well, its even more painful to write:

Liz Newman died two years ago at the age of 49.

Final. It always is..death is. The giggle gone. The laughter. The smiling Irish eyes in her squinty glance, the conspiratorially looking scowl we would occasionally get —would never be seen again except in the dusty memory banks that we somehow can muster even as we age.

Liz taught us to live and love, no matter what. Brighter, bolder and stronger than any joyous memory of Liz is her greatest gift of all: how each of us who loved her…((and because of her)) will always love, celebrate and support those who are different….which as a mirror in front of us confirms….is each and every one of us.