In Memory

Yesterday, my friends laid to rest the student who used to live a few doors down from me. A student who spent all night with me in a study room curled up in blankets just trying to make it through the last push of a semester. A student who sat on the floor outside my dorm room showing off the cellphone holder she had designed. A student I barely knew, and yet feel the absence of.

For the past few days, her Facebook page has been full of pictures from friends who celebrated the ways she brought them joy and laughter during her short time with them. Many of those friends are my friends.

They knew her better than I. They had more than a few fleeting interactions with her. Some had known her in middle school. Some had shared the bond of surviving the first semester in architecture school together. Some had taken nearly every college class ever with her in their midst.

       She will be missed.

       There is no need to say more than that.

And yet, her absence reminds us all that our time here is not our own. We do not always have a tomorrow. We do not always have a “when we feel like it.” The call of our God, either to respond to who he is or to do what he says, is not one that we are guaranteed time to put off.