Grief finds strange ways to express itself. In some, it manifests as a January wind, swooping low and silent over rivers of frozen tears. For others, the opposite is true; volcanoes of emotion, anger at oneself, at fate, at the world – bubbling hot enough to scorch heaven. No single definition exists; save perhaps the iron chains that bind the heart, and steal the shallow breath of rippled calm.
No single answer comes either, when we look at each other and ask, “Why?” There is no right answer. We all have our own thoughts on the matter, our own ideas. Doubtless, Jessica Hamlyn did too.
The greatest tragedy to strike our campus is the loss of one of our own. Perhaps even worse than the loss of life, are the dreams that will never bloom; flowers that wither with the dawn. She might have changed the world.
She still might.
She changed us – all of us. Even if you did not know her directly, she changed you. Her contributions to campus over her years here serve to make it a better place; it makes us better people. We owe it to her, to use her memory – to the girl who sat behind us in a class three years ago, the girl who lived down the hall, the friend who shared our pain, the sister we never had – to foster our dreams; to continue to reach for them. We are mortal; our lives teeter on the balance just like hers did. But we are alive, and we can still change the world.
We all share the grief – in its myriad facets – inflicted by Sunday’s tragedy, and offer our deepest condolences to Jessica’s family and her friends, and to you, the one who might have never known her; or realized the loss her ephemeral life – yet so important! – had on you.