Dear Hannah,
It’s already been a year since you were here. I didn’t know you. I never even met you, but I think about you.
I see you in the orange ribbon on my backpack. You’re there with every girl I pass walking alone late at night. When I’m downtown I think about where you were and what you saw, and then I especially feel you at the Whispering Wall even though your memorial was taken down months ago.
I miss the person that you never got to be. I would’ve liked to meet that person. I know you liked “Riptide” and Starbursts and skiing, but there was so much more of you I could’ve known. In fact, it’s weird using the past tense when thinking and talking about you because even though you’re not here, I think that I’m still getting to know you.
You’re still here and you’re still present because you’re still making a difference in my life. You make me want to live. And not in the cheesy way that I want to make the most out of my life because I don’t know when it will all be gone. I want to live for what you didn’t get to live. I want to be my whole self for you and others who had that taken from them.
You just deserved more: more of life, more of love, more friendship and education and adventure, more of everything. I hope that in some way, me living with you in mind will give you that little more. I hope that you know how much of an impact you have had and continue to have on so many people and, although it would be outright malicious to say something good came out of your disappearance and death, I believe completely that you were a factor of the growth of UVA’s community last year.
You forced us to realize our strengths in a time of suffering and these strengths helped us as a university to stand strong and move forward. We miss you and nothing could ever make me wish that you weren’t still here with us.
Just know that we haven’t forgotten about you. You are now engrained into the definition of Wahoowa. We cheer for you. We wish you well. We wish you were here, but also know that you will never really leave.
Most sincerely,
A fellow Wahoo
