My husband receives the Harvard Magazine and the only part of it I read with consistency, OK ever, are the obituaries. I am drawn to the young people and quickly go to the youngest to see who has died.
Why?
Perhaps it's because these young people recently graduated from Harvard.
Harvard.
An institution that glows just when you say the word. While my husband was busy attending that place and studying I was at Iowa drinking a lot of beer. Of course I studied as well but joking aside there is such promise to those who attend Harvard.
Tonight, my husband walked in to the family room and said look at this, there are three recents graduates, undergrads who died and all in traffic accidents.
Now, because I read these obits with frequency I can tell you there are not normally too many recent grads who have passed away but this time there are three. Two due to car crashes and one to a motorcycle crash.
Jennifer Jean Malin graduated in '09 and died October 26th, 2013 in a traffic accident in Austin, according to the magazine.
"She was studying for a doctorate in social and clinical psychology at the University of Texas, Austin...dedicated her extracurricular efforts to community gardening and to helping abused women and children."
The second was Justin Alexander Morgan also a '09 graduate.
He died October 14th, also in Austin, from injuries sustained from a motorcycle crash, according to the magazine. He was a former member of the Crimson football team, which won two Ivy League championships during his Harvard years...His favorite things included sports, drawing and painting, the beach, his two dogs...scuba diving with his dad. He left his parent and fiancé.
The third obituary is for a young woman who just graduated in '12, Juliet Noel Macchi, she died on September 22nd in a car crash, in Plymouth, Mass, on the way home from a Red Sox game.
Her mom was in the car and she too died.
These are so incredibly sad to me.
As a parent I can not even imagine.
Harvard take notice, you are filled with bright people, help us out and help curb the high amount of beautiful lives being taken in mostly preventable car crashes.
This is not a unique situation sadly, this is common place. Car crashes are the #1 cause of death to young people. Yet we continue to tailgate, excessively speed and drive distracted. We are in immediate need of change.