Best friends since they were two years old, Janice English and Nina Strenk are inseparable.
"I love her; she is my sister," English said. "I don't have a sister. I'm grateful."
The two women have raised kids and faced life's ultimate challenges together.
Nothing was more horrible than the death of Blake, English's youngest son. He died suddenly at a slumber party in 2006.
"I think back to that day where I got that phone call, and I can still hear her voice," Strenk said.
English struggled to accept how a perfectly healthy teenager would die without warning. Even doctors didn't understand why.
"He said, 'This doesn't make sense. Fourteen-year-old boys that look like this do not just die. You need to do an autopsy,'" English recalled.
The verdict after the post-mortem exam was sudden cardiac death. Problems contributing to the danger can be detected by an EKG, a heart screening.
"It took me eight months to breathe, and when I started to breathe again, I realized that I wanted to do something," English said.
So she got involved.
Strenk volunteered at a free heart screening to honor Blake. She went with daughter, Ally, who decided to get tested.
"I could just tell by the doctor's face, something was weird," Strenk said.
In no time, they were at Children's Medical Center Dallas for treatment. Ally's heart was failing.
She faced an extreme risk for sudden cardiac death.
"We were just looking at each other saying, 'What is happening here?'" Strenk said.
"I kept saying to myself, there is a purpose of why this happened," English added.
Two procedures later, Ally's heart couldn't be stronger. And while English feels like Ally is her own, she can't help but hold onto Blake's every memory — including his room.
"He loved this house; this is his room," English said. "As long as I'm in this house, this is his room."
From photos to memory books, even the sheets have never been washed. She said Blake is very much alive.
"This was his way of saying, 'My death is not in vain,'" English said. "I didn't just save a child. I saved my best friend. Blake saved Ally."
And after 45 years of friendship, that's the greatest gift these two women share.
Sudden cardiac death is the largest cause of natural death among adults. Two children in every 100,000 suffer from heart disease.
On May 14, English and Strenk will walk in Blake's honor to raise money to put automated external defibrillators in schools. The portable machines can save young people from sudden cardiac death.
E-mail sslater@wfaa.com
