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Someone I Knew; Someone I Wish You Could Have Known

To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.
~Thomas Campbell, "Hallowed Ground"

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love feeling the cool breeze on my face, while the sun gently warms my back. I love the colors of the leaves over my head and their crunch beneath my feet. I love the other side of the woods revealed; having been hidden for an entire season. But just as this season reveals what lies inside the depth of the woods, it reminds me of the heavy burden of loss. For the woods to come alive, the leaves must descend to their death.




Why the melancholy during my favorite time of year? It was around this time some 12 years ago, when I lost a friend whom I thought would live forever. Rayna was a first year medical student at SIU. I knew her from working in the hospital. She was never without a smile and if so, it was only for a brief second, as frown turned to smirk and smirk into smile. I always knew my shift was going to be more bearable when I walked in and saw that Rayna was on that night. I had never met someone so full of life and promise. She was younger than I, but still, it was I who looked up to her. Wanting to be a doctor for the purest of reasons--to truly help people and join Doctors Without Borders--Rayna's wishes were short-lived. Her life was taken in a car accident in her first semester of med school.


It is in these times when we ask many questions. The most simple of which is "Why?" What possible reason could there be to take someone so young, so full of life and so eager to do so much good? Perhaps the reason lies in the quote above. As a young spirit such as this leaves us, I realize now that she has not truly left us. I still find myself wishing I could live up to her standards; to give the way she gave; to care the way she cared. I can only wish. I can only hope that I have not let her down. And knowing that I am not the only life she has touched--that I am not the only one who does not want to let Rayna down--I am reminded of how many hearts in which she lives on. For this reason, she will never truly be dead.


Meet my friend: http://www.smallnewspapers.com/djwebsite/collections/data/obituaries/1999/101399ob.html

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