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A young woman died today.

A kind, intelligent, energetic young woman died today. It’s a strange thing to know someone through a class, but I knew her through one of the most maddening and rewarding courses I’ve taken. We arranged to meet to discuss a group project in August and I was horrendously late. She was more patient than I deserved, more well-prepared than the group partner of my wildest perfectionist dreams, and she was even funny. 

Working with her was a privilege. Getting to know her was a delight. It was one of those new friendships you look forward to cultivating, maybe a little later, like a good book left on the shelf. Because there was always so much work to be done. There was always one last push to get every possible point on the next assignment. 

A week before this young woman passed away we were, as psychology students tend to be, trapped together in a computer lab for an indefinite span of time. We joked, we worked, we found the perfect Powerpoint theme. Even late into the night, despite inconclusive research and various computer failures, she was the soul of kindness.

Given past events I feel (maddeningly, irrationally, selfishly) like I should have known. In my rational mind I know that I will never know what happened, or why, or what could have been done. In the rest of my mind I wish I had stopped for a moment. I wish that last week, when we were finally done with that beast of a project, I would have asked her to have a celebratory hot chocolate. I wish that at any point I would have asked her questions more human than “How are you?” and “How are your classes?” 

Because in my mind that was the scope of the world. Because I was so focused on that perfect GPA, the gold star that would somehow send the monster of future uncertainty back into the closet. Because I was so focused on one thing, there is the faintest possibility that I missed a place where I could have helped.

A young woman died today. My heart goes out to everyone who knew her and everyone who loved her.

To anyone who might still be reading this, I ask you to learn from my failure. Don’t look so hard in one direction that you can’t see something beautiful. Do not be so busy being a student - a statistician, a scientist, an artist, a teacher, whatever it is you are - that you forget to look for the moments that make you human.