Cottage cheese, cereal, and PB&Js

Freshman year of college I lived in suite; three roommates total, two on each side. Across the hall, lived four girls. Carly, who's family dined with and befriended Jeffrey Dahmer and his family. Nicole, who ran the top N'Sync fan website and thus, monopolized much of the campus' internet bandwidth. Ann, who had a full-ride scholarship to the business school and wore a belt fashioned from a seatbelt. And Katie, who worked harder than most and dated (eventually married) her high school sweetheart.

As for me, I was the adopted roommate, in lieu of Carly.

As is always true with roommates, we all started to know each others' habits. Nicole had a penchant for hitting the snooze button and slipping through parking lot guards. Katie, studied much, partied just as much, and went to every class. Ann, napped at every spare moment for hours at a time and would only eat PB&J, cottage cheese and cereal.

On Monday, from Katie, I learned that Ann passed away. Her latest facebook update tells that she was off to China to volunteer for the Olympics. It seems that in Beijing, she suffered a severe head injury and died as a result.

I didn't believe it at first. As one person said, I thought it was a joke. But no punch line ever came.

Ann was the infallible one. The girl who had three majors in undergrad, already earned her masters and was on her way to law school a month from now. Flip cup was her sport and sarcasm was her language. She was the intelligent one who was going to stop world poverty and hunger with a sweep of her arm. And after a five-hour nap, she'd go on to spread reason to all the dictators of the war-torn countries. Thus spreading peace throughout the world.

In Switzerland, I fractured my leg while we were canyoning and Ann walked away eager to jump right back in. We theorized that had we lived in Switzerland, we would be neighbors and paraglide to work every day. Two steps, parachute would be inflated and off we'd be.

When most of started work, Ann went to intern/volunteer at the UN in Strasbourg, France. Before that, it was at Capitol Hill. Then it was the AmeriCorps and a job at Habitat for Humanity. That's not to say she was superhuman.

It's to say, she lived.

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Somewhere around the 72 hour mark ago, I gave a two-minute toast to celebrate the wedding of two good friends. Marking a momentous beginning.

24 hours ago, I learned that Ann passed away. Marking a momentous finality.

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To Ann, the baller who's aim was to never grow up. August 4, 2008
Beijing, China