gone

During an episode of Scrubs the other day in which the show quoted the statistic that 1 in 3 hospitalized patients die, J. asked me whether I identified more with the characters now that we were on the wards. I replied that I haven't had enough comparable experience to really empathize more than anyone else. We were talking about this again today, and J. mentioned how she's learned that one's person tragedy affects so many, often touching far beyond those who knew the person.

Two and a half hours after that conversation we received news that Natasha Collins, a student in the class below ours who has been battling an aggressive form of leukemia, has passed away.

Several months ago her class began a national bone marrow drive to find her a donor, and the registry was overwhelmed by the response and support. Friends to whom I've passed on the message did the same, and followed her story as one intimate to them. Because of the concerted effort of her loved ones, and the accumulated reaching out of strangers, she received a transplant last month. Earlier this month, she battled an infection with more perseverance than any of her doctors had anticipated, getting through in a few days what we'll spend the rest of our lives questioning, imagining, considering, without knowing. Today she passed away.

As with the passing of Mila, who I also didn't know, during our first year, I'm stunned by how deeply we're affected, how communal a community is, and how far commonality extends. Back then I was also surprised by how much was connected by this tragedy, these ever prevalent and recurring themes that seep into daily life, thrown into hard relief by the suddenness of something gone.

At the end of the show, the three main characters are each faced with a patient in danger of dying; three split screens fill the television, and for a split second we wonder who it will be: which 1 of the 3? In the end, all three pass. Because statistics are just numbers, and some days it will be more and some days it will be less. Each time, it will feel much bigger than 1 in 3; each time it will feel like there has just been one--correctly so--and now it is gone.

As with anything gone, we're left to remember and to continue better, for what they've given in passing. No one day, no one endeavor, carries the depth of strength that she showed, that having never touched her, we could feel carried from her air to ours. And so there is reason to continue.