Yesterday, while I was getting the buyers’ final initials on a contract that took a month to negotiate, my Blackberry rang.  It was my friend Monica Belisan, and as I excused myself to answer it, I knew it might be really awful news.  And it was.

Many Washington area agents knew Cheryl Hanks.  She was a best friend and former office-mate, and she died Monday night.  She went to a friend’s wedding in Amman, Jordan, and had a cerebral hemorrhage after the festivities were over.  That was about two weeks ago, and she seemed to be on the path to recovery.  Her friends all prayed like crazy, but it must have been her time.

It was the call I was praying would not come. So I got the deal I was praying for and lost the dear friend I was praying for.  Bummer.

Her friends and colleagues have been in shock. 

Cheryl was an amazing friend and an amazing real estate agent. 

When we first got to know each other, we were sharing an office at Pardoe Real Estate in Georgetown. My first surprise was hearing her speaking Arabic on the phone.  Huh?  I’m told she was far from fluent, but I was sure impressed!

We moved to WC & AN Miller at the same time, and she became the top agent in my old office.  I grew to envy her discipline and the way she seemed to somehow balance being the real estate queen of Tenleytown (her neighborhood) with having a life.   She was known throughout her neighborhood as the person who organized “First Friday” dinners at Guapo’s, a neighborhood watering hole.

What I most respected about the professional Cheryl was how she was able to do a whole lot of business without sacrificing quality - her real estate practice was a total class act.  And while most of her listings and sales seemed to be really big, gorgeous homes, she provided the same wonderful service to her first time buyers - the champagne taste beer budget clients.

She had done a lot of volunteer work for groups promoting peace in the Middle East.  Her parents were diplomats, and while growing up, she lived in Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia and Jordan.  While attending school in Paris, she lived above the cafe pictured in the film Avenue Montainge - our favorite chick flick.

Before real estate, Cheryl was known as Dr. Hanks, and was a tenured professor at Northeastern University.  Her specialty was early childhood development, and her magnum opus was a paper called “Mommy, Daddy, and the Midnight Visitor”, about young children sleeping with their parents.  Now I have to read that one!

She was part of my posse.  She and our friend Monica and I had a standing Sunday night date after our Opens to meet at her adorable mini-Victorian house to watch “Desperate Housewives”.  We took a vacations to Barbados, a place we both loved, and we flew to Ireland where I played flute at her daughter’s wedding. Cheryl was, like me, a major devotee of Saint Anthony, who helped us find car keys, parking spaces in Georgetown, and buyers for our unsold listings.  Yesterday, we were talking about the people she would want to see in heaven, and while everyone else was talking about her first husband and her mom and her old best friend Mary O’Brian O’Brian, Monica and I looked at one another, started to laugh, and said, “Saint Anthony will be the first one she looks up!”

She was younger and thinner than me, worked out 6 times a week at the gym to my 1 or 2 (in a good week), she drank only good wine (no Gray Goose or Makers Mark) and not as much as I did, and she seemed to be really healthy.We shared a hairdresser and an old boyfriend. This is just not fair!

I am convinced that Cheryl’s intervention ratified my contract yesterday and that she will help us resolve any issues that come up before settlement.  She is now someone I can pray to for help with my love life, real estate deals, dieting, and other life challenges.  And I really, really miss her.