On Friday morning, GW awoke to one of the warmest and sunniest days this year, but by 9:30 a.m., the sunshine felt more unnatural than the bitter cold of the past weekend. It was then that the GW community was notified of the tragic death of sophomore Laura Treanor.
- Laura Treanor, 1989-2009
- Friends remember Treanor at memorial service, Catholic Mass
- Cause of student’s death remains a mystery
- Treanor was a positive and outgoing person
- Laura Treanor: Pondering the Pope
- Clayton McCleskey: A return to a spiritual path
- Brittany Levine: Remembering Laura: A life filled with charm, grace and good humor
- Staff Editorial: In Memory of Laura
In order to understand the importance of something in your life, consider its absence. Here at The Hatchet, we are forced to say goodbye to both a co-worker and friend. A talented writer and enthusiastic contributing editor, her absence will be felt in a way that words can hardly express.
We are not the only organization that will be losing a valued member, and we offer our condolences to the sisters of Phi Sigma Sigma, as well as to those who knew Laura through her involvement at the Newman Center. Laura also worked in the School of Media and Public Affairs building, where she will surely be missed as well.
In a lot of ways, Laura was the best of what GW has to offer. She was passionate about what she did, and simply reading the comments on blog posts and Facebook groups makes it clear that she touched a lot of lives.
Whether you personally knew Laura or not, this tragedy has touched all of us. The death of a 19-year-old shows the rest of us that we are not, as we like to believe, invincible. Being young and ambitious is no guarantee of, well, anything.
When something like this happens, most of us just want to know why. It is frustrating to not yet have many answers, but frustration cannot overshadow the hard-learned lessons this tragedy brings.
As University President Steven Knapp pointed out in his e-mail to our community, we have to take this as a reminder to take care of each other and to be there for each other, especially in difficult times.
Again, even if you didn’t have a chance to personally know Laura, it is OK to feel sad. When we go away to college, we in essence build a new family and a new community, and each of us is a part of that. We just lost someone, and no matter how well you did or didn’t know Laura, take time to acknowledge how fragile life really is.
Monday night at 7:30 p.m., in the Smith Center, there will be a school-wide memorial service. We encourage every member of our community to go – to honor Laura’s memory and show that what effects one of us does in fact resonate throughout our school.
