On Campus Blog 2

I attended the Make Peace event, hosted by Student Peace Alliance last week. I know we are supposed to do an event that is a stretch for us, but this event was so powerful for me personally, that I feel I should write about it for my on campus event. The event was in memory of Rob, and man you could feel his presence everywhere that night; it was incredibly powerful and really, really awesome. There were a multitude of musical acts that night, as well as other types of performances, but one in particular shook me to the core. An SU student, I believe a sophomore, composed an orchestral piece the night of Rob’s death, and it was performed by during the event by an orchestra (I think- I’m not really sure what an orchestra consists of) and the choir. I cannot even express how moving the piece was on a personal level; it was as though the spirit of Rob was in that piece. And anyone that knew Rob knows how beautiful his spirit is; he was one of the kindest, most compassionate, incredible souls I have ever encountered- honestly, there is no way to put into words how amazing of a person he was. Fortunately though, someone was able to put it into music. It was as though that composition took a snapshot of a smiling Rob, with his arms open to the world, and transformed it into a piece of music that touched everyone’s hearts in a way that only Rob could. I cried again that night for Rob, as did others, but it was a good cry. I think we all felt something that night; I can’t really explain what it was, but it was peaceful. It was essentially, in my very subjective opinion at least, the embodiment of the beauty and meaning of life. The atmosphere in that room was so perfect; it was constructive, caring, creative, impassioned, and incredibly, incredibly peaceful. We read Hannah Arendt in my political theory class, and she says that individuals must create their own meanings by creating their own worlds, and that night a beautiful world was created, one that Rob would have been so ecstatic to witness, and even more ecstatic to have inspired. I don’t believe in heaven in the traditional sense, but I do believe that wherever Rob’s spirit is, it was smiling his ridiculously bright, optimistc, beautiful smile, and for at least a night, I think all of us really experienced the compassion and peace that was Rob’s life.