Lj Idol -- Topic 14: Precognition, Intersection with cobycaroline
No one was to blame - we were just college kids trying to study for exams and make it through the next day, but somehow she slipped through our fingers. Our vivacious, smart, motivated, caring, quirky friend didn't make it and none of us knew it for five whole days.
• She's an introvert and likes to be alone on the weekends.
• She's working on her honor's thesis and asked to be left alone.
• She doesn't have a roommate - maybe she just wants a little privacy.
• Someone else has probably seen her - I'm just being dramatic.
All of these were excuses that her friends all made about why we hadn't heard from her in five days.
Five whole days.
I'd heard of the elderly falling and passing, being left alone for several days because no one visits them anymore; but a twenty-two year old? My friend who lived in a dorm?
Twenty two is too young to die.
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Rebecca and I had two classes and choir together that semester; so we saw each other at least six times per week. She wasn’t in either class one Monday (two of her favorites Old English & Acting II), and she wasn’t a senior prone to slacking. Double majoring, minoring, singing in the choir and Chamber Singers, singing a lead in the spring musical, interning at an art museum, and writing an honor’s paper - she was busy but motivated.
Nesi, one of the girls from our Acting class, was going to check on her after class because she lived in her dorm; and when I didn't hear anything, I assumed that meant everything was OK.
She was probably just sick or stressed out and decided to take a personal day.
I didn’t quite believe that but I pushed aside other thoughts in my head, thoughts of a car accident or horrible sickness, because I tend to worry too much. It was probably nothing.
Tuesday she wasn't in choir.
I asked around and no one had heard from her, and it was making me nervous. I called her that night to let her know about the quiz on Wednesday and to see if she had any questions about homework.
No response.
Katie, you're such a worry-wart, I thought; so I let it go.
Wednesday after lunch, I was in my room collecting my books for Music Theory with my boyfriend. It was a quick trip upstairs - a glance in the mirror, a few quick kisses, and the phone rang. I remember him telling me not to answer it but I picked up the phone anyway.
Katie, are you sitting down? I heard on the other end of the line; and I start swatting at the hand that was going up my shirt.
No, Nesi - but tell me, what is it? Is it Rebecca? Is she OK?
Even before the words were out of my mouth, I had a horrible feeling about what she would say. Rebecca hadn't been in class again and we'd had a quiz. I had planned to talk to Ms. Plants after Acting class that night and see if someone could get in touch with her.
Rebecca's dead. They just called a dorm meeting and told us. The police and EMT are here and they want to talk to anyone who might know anything. You should come over - they've mentioned your name as one of her friends who might know something.
I hung up, looked around, and started thinking out loud.
Where's Natalie? I need to find Natalie!
My boyfriend looked at me like I had two heads -- he didn't know what had happened and had no clue why Natalie was so important to find. Their relationship had been a secret to almost everyone, and I didn't want her to find out through gossip. With only 1200 students on campus, word traveled fast.
I called her cell - she was in her room; so I asked her to come over to talk.
I really hate to be the bearer of bad news; but I couldn't think of anything else to do. She came over, I told her, and we just stared at each other. The emotions passing across Natalie's face echoed what I felt in my heart - confusion, anger, hurt, injustice, resignation, devastation; I felt them all in a matter of seconds.
I called my teacher and left a message that I wouldn't be at Music Theory. The boyfriend left to go to class after my repeating five times that he didn’t need to come with me (in fact, I didn’t want him to be there right then), and Natalie and I walked over to her dorm Shriner Hall.
The campus was already buzzing as we walked the 30 feet to the dorm next door, but I didn't care. I just kept walking forward, glancing nervously at Natalie to make sure she didn’t turn and run - she looked like she was going to any second.
We walked through the back door and I look around for the police to give him what little information I had (what days she missed class, the last time I saw her, etc.) when the police ask if I knew Natalie. She looked up, surprised that anyone knew about their relationship but walked away with a police officer to offer up the details that she had so they could establish a timeline.
The rest of the day blurred past.
I remember meeting my best friend in the quad and another girl who I ended up having to comfort as she fell to the ground sobbing with the news.
I remember a few girls coming up and asking us what was going on, fishing for gossip like it was something on the news or some abstract fiction, not the fact that my friend had died.
I remember going to the chapel at some point, thinking that would make me feel better, but it didn’t.
I remember people using Rebecca’s death as an excuse to skip class that week. We were sitting at dinner that night when someone at the next table had the audacity to say to their friend Yea, I told my professor that I knew the girl in Shriner who died; and he gave me an extension on my paper. Good thing - I hadn’t even started it. I was too drained to say anything, too upset to make a scene and yell the things that were going through my head.
While they were bragging about an extra 24 hours to complete a paper, I was sitting there knowing that the bright-eyed, cheery, quirky, nerdy, wonderful, theatrical Rebecca I knew and loved wouldn't walk out of her room again.
She wouldn't go on to perform a lead role in Pirates of Penzance in April, wouldn't be there to walk across the stage at graduation with her diploma in May, wouldn't be there to see her beloved Avalon theater open up the next fall as a black box theater, wouldn't turn in her honor's thesis or go on to get her Master’s degree.
She wouldn't...fill in the blank. There was nothing more that she could do and I couldn't help thinking back to those moments when the pit of my stomach dropped and I wondered what had happened and did nothing.
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Her death was ruled accidental, not suicide; but so many of us still asked What if? What if we'd checked on her earlier - called her on Friday night to hang out, stopped by her room, knocked on her door when we heard the tv blaring on Sunday afternoon, followed our instincts and called someone earlier to go by her room.
What if?
Those words could haunt me forever but never more than they do this month. It's been five years since the world lost one of the most talented, motivated, and intelligent people I've ever met, and I sometimes can't help but think what if someone had gone with their gut and said or done something more?
Would she have finished her Master’s degree? Gone on to become an Archeologist or acted in local theater productions or written a book or lectured at universities?
Rebecca was two years ahead of me in school - someone I admired and looked up to, someone who called my friends and me her littles because of our age. When I was a freshman in college, she sat there during a theater tech rehearsal and sang all of Handel’s Messiah by memory - I was in awe; and she promised me that I’d be able to do that by the time I was her age. The year after she passed, I found myself doing the same thing - teaching freshmen the ropes, telling them about the traditions at Hood and the things that you shouldn’t take for granted.
I paused every time I walked by the rose garden we planted by Brodbeck Music Hall in her honor and yelled at a student once who walked through it and knocked down the sign. That plaque in the ground might have just been part of the campus to him, but to me it was the only physical reminder of Rebecca that I had.
My dearest Rebecca, I still miss you and think of you often; and I hope that you're proud of us - your class of littles.
I have included a picture of Rebecca in November 2004, 3 months before she passed away, taken in a hat shop in Annapolis, MD during Messiah weekend. It's a black & white picture, and she's struck a dramatic pose - a perfect representation of her personality. This picture was used in the memorial service collage given to her family and was one that is iconic of the woman Rebecca was.
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This is for therealljidol's Week 14 Prompt: PRECOGNITION. This week we chose partners and I had the pleasure to work with the fabulous cobycaroline. Her post, about the other side of the veil, can be found HERE. Also, if you enjoyed what either of us wrote, check out therealljidol to read some great entries and vote (likely starting on Monday night and ending on Wednesday/Thursday).