Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Requiescat in Pace

I've never really known anyone who has died. My grandfather died about 8 years ago, but I wasn't very close to him. One of my second cousins died last year of brain cancer, but I also only knew her a little bit. Death has never really touched me close to home before.

That changed when I looked at the front page of today's paper. I took the paper out of it's plastic bag and set it down to peruse. I looked at the headlines, and the really cool pictures someone took of lightning in the bad storms last night, but then my eyes glanced just below and breifly glanced over the headline--something about a crash and UNH professor--and locked onto the picture. It was a picture of the professor I completed my Biotech III internship with, Dr. Charles Warren. I wondered briefly why he was in the news, and then I looked back up at the headline, and my heart stopped when I saw it: "Paraglider crash kills UNH professor"

Crash kills UNH professor. Crash kills. Kills... Kills? UNH Professor... Killed? Death... He is dead. Dead? UNH Professor... Dr. Charles Warren; someone I knew; someone I highly respected. Is it possible? Of course it is; no one is exempt from the laws of nature, the law of mortality. But in the prime of one's life? From an accident while doing something you love? It's truly tragic. This might take a while to sink in completely; death had never before hit so close to home.

He was a very kind, genial man, and very smart. It was easy to get along with him, he hated being called Dr. Warren, preferring Charles. I enjoyed very much working with him on his research over those three weeks two summers ago. When I started that internship, he had just come back from a paragliding competition in Australia, something he seemed to love. I had hoped to perhaps work in his lab again over a summer, if briefly. I'm sure he will be missed.

RIP Dr. Charles Warren

3 comments:

  1. *big hug for nick*

    sorry, sweetie.

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  2. Death is a scary thing when it hits close to home.

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  3. I knew Dr.Warren, too, from UNH, and I had almost the same reaction when I saw the same headline of the same paper you did. I was walking into Staples in dover, and glanced at the cool storm pictures, then saw the headline, then saw the picture of Dr. Warren. He was the kind of professor that we wanted all of our professors to be like. Approchable, enthusiastic, fun, and relentless. I really think that he had a personal caring for every student that he helped. It is very sad when someone you know dies, but it is somehow so much worse when you know that their life had so much potential to touch the lives of others...
    He will be missed.

    (ps i found your blog from okcupid)

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