Hello everyone.

photo c/o Kelsey Tinkham. The only recorded history of Freebird’s being closed.

I’m writing today with a heavy heart, but I hope that in doing so, I’m helping myself, and maybe some others heal even just the slightest bit. Yesterday, I attended one of many candlelight vigils held across the state in remembrance of the lives lost on Friday. Hundreds of people came to pay their respects- UCSB sweatshirts as far as the eye could see. Despite the number of people gathered, it was utterly silent. As beautiful as it was to see, I hate that we are all bonded by this atrocity now. As people stepped up to speak on the steps of Memorial Glade on the UC Berkeley campus, I was amazed by how many people knew the victims directly. They spoke of their kindness, their goofiness, their love of baking. I was brought to tears when so many people recalled their time at Santa Barbara as having experienced some of the hardest times of their lives, directly followed by some of the best. This mimicked my experience there. When I felt utterly alone and broken, the people I met there helped me through my struggles, most without even realizing it. The only solace we have is that we are never alone as we experience the loss and the emotions that come with it. Berkeley’s Vice Chancellor Claude M. Steele, in honor of those that passed all too soon, and in the great Maya Angelou’s words, said it best:

“And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly.  Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed.  They existed.
We can be.  Be and be
better.  For they existed.”

Love,

EVA♥