But here's the thing, she wasn't just
my Resident Assistant, she was my friend. She left such a big space
behind her, and even though she's happy now, and all her her health
problems are gone, the people she left behind are going to miss her.
People always say good things about people after they've died, but
everyone said good things about Carmody when she was alive, too. She
was the sort of person who it was impossible to hate, and I don't
want to forget her.
She taught us how to do our cleaning
checks, and let me come over to her apartment about five different
times on the day of our first one to ask a million questions, and
even came over to our apartment to show me how to clean the vent
under the stove hood. She taught us how to scrape soap scum off the
soap dish in the tub, and then complimented our shiny clean tub. She
got excited about random cats outside, and stopped everything to run
to the window to look at them. She once said she always had a pot of
some sort of pasta on the stove. Every time I went to her apartment
for a Relief Society meeting with her roommate, she was cooking with
her boyfriend in the kitchen. She came over to check our smoke
detectors once a month, and Chelsea would always apologize for her
messy room, which wasn't even that messy. Anna and I were on building
council with her, and we all made a banner for our building, and we
made pipe cleaner hearts and people. We planned a hot chocolate bar,
and she searched on pinterest all day for a way to make clothespin
compliments to tie service into it somehow. She always played
basketball on the court outside our bedroom window. One time we were
walking back from some meeting, and saw some of the girls in our
building stuck in their apartment because their door wouldn't work;
she climbed in their window and stayed with them till they fixed the
door and could get out. She held building meetings even when she
didn't want to, and stuck notes about them on our doorknobs so we
would be sure to see them. She conducted the music in Relief Society,
and had a CTR ring that Anna once mistook for an engagement ring. I would always see her when I went out to check the mail and I called her Cahmody in an obnoxious Boston accent every time. She
had the most beautiful smile that lit up her whole face and made her
eyes all squinty, and she would always smile that smile and wave at
me when she saw me on the bus, and talk to me in her cute raspy
voice.
The last time I saw her, I was rushing
to catch the shuttle for class. There was sunshine that day, and she
was sitting on the grass in the sun on the side of our building. She
looked sad, and I had seen on facebook that she had been sick all
week. She waved, but it wasn't as happy as it usually was. I waved
back, and was going to say something, but my mouth was full of the
apple I was eating on the way to class. I wanted to say something to
her, and ask if she was OK, but that dang apple was in the way, and I
didn't want to miss the shuttle. The next day she was taken to the
hospital with a nosebleed that wouldn't stop, and she died a week
later. I wish I had said something better that day on the way to
class, or even anything at all, but it's too late to change now.
What's done is done, and I'm at peace.
Carmody was an angel on earth, and now
she's an angel in heaven. Rest in peace.
