Personal tragedies highlight need for passion and awareness in life

My letter is in response to Jamie Kanter's column that appeared in the Thursday edition of the Wildcat ("Live passionately while you still can"). My father passed away on the first of February this year. When I read Jamie's column I felt a sort of relief that someone had finally been able to put into words what I have been thinking over the past few months. When someone dies, especially someone you are very close to, like I was with my father, it changes your whole way of thinking. I am graduating in May, and when my father became sick and went into the hospital, where he passed away six days later, my entire life changed. I think that sometimes students as a whole forget about the "outside world."

They forget that there is life after college and that there are other things that matter in life. Things like friendships, and family and personal sanity. They also take for granted, like I did, the beautiful sunsets, the green trees and the other simple things that exist every day and no one pays attention to them. My father will never see another sunset, he will never see another basketball or football game. He will never see his daughter graduate from college or get married or see his grandchildren. People forget that these are the things that really matter in life. The time that we have on this earth is very limited, and no one is exactly sure where we go when we die, if in fact, we go anywhere. So I would have to say that Jamie was right when he said that we need to find our passions and enrich ourselves because our time is so limited and no one really knows which sunset will be our last.

I know that this letter is a little more frank and possibly more negative than the usual letters that you print, but I would encourage you to think twice before deciding not to publish it because sometimes people need to read things like Jamie's column and letters like this to wake them up and take a long, hard look at what is important to them.

By Cynthia Shillito (letter)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
April 2, 1997