Archived Edition: April 11, 2007 | Back to Current	Sep 10, 2010

A tribute to the passing of friend and classmate Katie Craig ’08
Laura Specker - Senior Writer
Laura Specker - Senior Writer

Adaptable and brilliant, she left us with so many different kinds of memories, in so many different parts of our lives. We remember dancing with her as a happy little penguin on Halloween at Sheep Hill. We remember bubble tea in the common room, fondue and backrubs. We remember sledding down mission hill on the ‘boggan. We remember farming in France.

We remember dressing up like the golden ratio and all the complexities involved in that endeavor. We remember running down route 2, freezing. We remember seeing her fluid movements as she skied past us, and we remember her breathless finish. We remember lots and lots of cooking – mostly polenta. We remember huddling after The Vagina Monologues, discussing orgasms. We remember her painting. We remember sitting with her in class and struggling through lab write-ups with her. We remember the cards she wrote us from abroad, teaching us how to say “you make me laugh!” and “I want to eat mangoes with you!” in Malagasy.

We remember the dreams she shared with us, the hopes of starting an organic farm and putting an end to global warming and living happily ever after. We remember the way her eyes would light up when she spoke of friends or recounted a weekend of adventures with the ski team. We remember how she shrieked and giggled when she went swimming in cold water. We remember how she liked to use two teabags instead of one, because the tea – and life – was richer that way.

Katie Craig lived to make people happy. And in this, she accomplished more in her short time here than most of us could ever hope to. The word I have heard used most often in connection with Katie’s life is “light,” and I think she would be pleased with that idea, although, in her humility, she would never suggest it. Katie was a light for us all, bringing smiles and laughter equally to those of us who were fortunate enough to know her well and to those who only met her once. She glowed, and she made us all glow.

How many times did we come home to find some fun little treasure taped on our door, with Katie’s curly signature on it? How many times did we chew on a mango with her, savoring every succulent bite, until the juice ran down our chins and stained the carpet outside her doorway? How often did she whisper into our ear, concocting a plan for a secret mission – a journey to the dining hall, or the forest at night, or some forbidden rooftop?

How many times did we see her smile from across the quad and, breathlessly waiting for her to approach, bubble over with a thousand things we were bursting to tell her? How often did we stare, mesmerized, and wiggle our little bodies with her on the dance floor?

For those of us struggling with Katie’s absence, the obvious answer seems to be “not nearly enough.” We weren’t ready to hear that we’ve already used up our allotted number of moments with her. But I think we have to listen to what Katie said when she told us definitively that it was enough. She didn’t want her light to fade, so she left us while it was still bright. And she left enough of her light in each one of us so that we can continue to rely on that light for the rest of our lives.

In her absence, we will need that light more than we ever have. It made us feel better about the world to know that a person like Katie was in it with us. Now, at times, we can’t help feeling that the world is worse for Katie’s departure. But I try to think of Katie’s life as a symbol of hope and not of despair.

As her coach Bud Fisher said, Katie was like a shooting star. She showed us the full potential of love, motivation, beauty, spandex, chocolate and smiles. In the words of Mary Oliver, she challenged us all to make the most of our one “wild and precious life.” Right now, we are tempted to think of Katie’s life as short. But in time we will also remember it as wild – in the best possible way – and infinitely precious. If each of us can learn to emulate even a small piece of her wonderful radiance, Katie will be proud of us, and proud of how she has touched us all.



Whitney Leonard ’08 is a political economy major from Concord, Mass. Laura Specker ’08 is a philosophy and biology major from Ithaca, N.Y..