This is a break from social marketing to focus on the quintessence of life, and honor Eve Carson. One year ago today Eve, who was Student Body President at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was kidnapped and murdered.
All killings are tragic, but Eve's was especially so. I have never known of someone so full of light and life, as Eve. Until her death, I only knew small snippets about Eve, through my alumni activities. After her death, Eve's larger than life presence became something for me to know, and to love, and to emulate. You can read about all she was and did here and here. For me, she is someone for whom life was pressed down full in her cup and overflowing. Her name should have been "Hope," or "Lucy" (from Latin, Lux = Light). She is someone who was going to make a profound difference for good in the world. Actually, she was already about this endeavor. She had genuine unconditional positive regard for everyone she encountered. She was extraordinarily gifted at enabling the people she met to be their best selves. She volunteered locally and internationally in life-giving activities. She had a voracious curiosity about everyone and everything she encountered. She called out the best in people, appealed to their better angels. I can't find words, due to the limits of language and due to my own emotions, to do justice to describing her.
But, I can do her justice like this: by doing as she did, and being the very best, most alive Mike Newton-Ward I can be. By recognizing the eternity present in each moment and being fully present. By letting my own ration of light and love shine.
Eve touched a lot of people, she was going to touch many more. The beautiful, grace-filled irony is, that in death she will touch more people than in life; she will touch people who never actually knew her. Because all the people who did know her, or who will hear about her will touch others, and they will touch others, on and on and on.
She is a stone who skipped lightly over the waters, and her ripples go out and on forever.
Thank you, Eve. I love you.
(Photo: Brandonwu; First Photo: UNC Eve Carson Memorial Fund)
