Skip to main content

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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Antisociality of Social Media (Part 1)...Who Are We? How Did We Get Here?

(Response forthcoming in part two) I'm bad with names. I can remember a face no problem. But names are automatically sent to an unlockable vault deep within the cortex of my brain. I don't know if it is my short term memory that is a problem or long term. I have forgotten names of people I have just met while they are finishing their "Hi, I'm so and so. Nice to meet you." You had me at Hi and lost me by "I'm so and so." Likewise, I also can't remember the names of people I grew up with. I dread going out and about in my hometown for fear that I will run into someone who is purportedly my BFF from 1986 and I just don't remember his or her name to save my life. I'm partial to the Elaine Benes idea that we should all wear name tags. (For those not familiar with Seinfeld, Google it.) Now, one might be inclined to suggest that I see a neurologist to have a thorough hippocampus evaluation. But I'm not so sure the problem is c...
Post a Comment
Read more

Overpopulaton of Punctuation Marks Threatens Message Extinction

[Because this bears repeating in such desperate times] Scientists report that a recent rise in the overuse of punctuation marks will ultimately lead to the demise of the common message. It is not known if the increasing trend of ending a sentence with multiple and in some cases, mixed, punctuation marks is the result of the natural evolution of messaging, or if human actions are speeding the process. What is clear, though, is that punctuation marks and messages are not taking their impending doom lying down. In a rare twist of bipartisanship, punctuation marks and messages came together to call for measures to halt the message crisis and return our civilization back to the days of making points in a clear, concise manner. Speaking for the punctuators, Exclamation point stated, "I'm a loner. You don't need two of me. The whole purpose of my existence is to accentuate a  point. I thought I was doing that just fine already." Mr. Question Mark had this to...
Read more

Planning for Parenthood Involves Maintaining Your Health. Or, Why I Support Planned Parenthood

Given that I don't have kids, the title of this post may seem a bit odd. What do I know about planning for parenthood, right? I don't have much room to talk, right? Sure, I might not be one of the lucky ones who enjoys the joys of little bundles of joy, but I'm going to ask you to cut me a little slack before you judge. After all, at the age of nineteen, when I first moved away from home to prepare for a career in Radiography, I did not know I would be childless many moons later.
Read more