Remembering Marybeth

As the anniversary to Marybeth's passing draws nearer, I wanted to take some time to remember some things about her. Marybeth was my potluck roommate my freshman year of college. I remember meeting her for the first time. I had moved into our dorm first and spent a couple days alone. I was so relieved when she finally arrived. It was late at night and she was with her brother Andy. I even remember what she was wearing...jeans, a pink sleeveless top and a colorful scarf as a belt. That was the beginning of a special friendship.

Marybeth and I had a lot of fun together our freshman year. She was so friendly and outgoing. I remember she called everyone "kiddo." One of my favorite memories of Marybeth is when we decided to get a pet for our dorm room. Our dorms wouldn't allow any pets except fish, but Marybeth being the "rebel" she was, decided we could secretly have a hampster. We went to the pet store to check out the hampsters. After seeing how expensive it would be to buy all the stupid hampster stuff, we settled on two 99 cent goldfish. We named them Herman and Milton and joked that they were "the men in our lives." We managed to keep them alive for a whole semester! Eventually one of them starting growing mold or something on it (there were suddenly black spots all over it) and they died. We bought little fish charms and put them on necklaces to remember them. If you look closely in this picture you can see them.

Some other random memories of Marybeth:

Our first semester we were determined not to gain the "freshman 15." I mean, we were kind of obsessive about it. It's quite funny to look back on now because neither of us were even close to being overweight. We both had a pair of jeans that we almost fit into, but needed to lose a few pounds to look good in. We thumb-tacked them to our dorm room wall as inspiration. I don't think I ever fit into mine...I'm pretty sure she eventually did. She was much healthier than me :)

I remember the first time I heard her sing. I knew she was a music major and supposedly could sing well, but I had no idea how well. I remember we were in the car and she was singing to come country song and I was like "Woa! Marybeth!" She could sing better than anyone I know.

Marybeth and I had a tradition of going to Cheddars and only ordering appetizers and desserts. Yes, I know, we were sooo healthy. We would always get a cookie monster as one of the desserts....and we always felt miserable after the whole thing was gone.

I remember when she gave me the book "Beautiful in God's Eyes." At the time I was really struggling with my self-image and she had read this book and said it was really helpful. I was touched by her gesture.

I remember Marybeth always talking about how she was going to fail some paper or test or something, and then always ended up doing wonderfully. Marybeth was extremely smart. I remember her talking about wanting to change her major about 395343 times!

For some reason, Marybeth and I always liked to take pictures with us pretending to be really storng. We would show our muscles and make funny faces. Here are some examples. I know, our muscles are kind of pathetic, but we though we were pretty funny.

Marybeth was an extraordinary person. She impacted so many people in her short life. After our freshman year we didn't live together again, but would still have lunch together occasionaly and catch-up on each other's lives. We had a special connection and enjoyed deep, meaningful converstations. I will leave you with a video clip that captures Marybeth's personality. Disclaimer: We sometimes talked in funny voices to each other....so know that we don't normally talk this way :)