When Tragedy Strikes…

I’m still kind of in shock.

I found out Thursday afternoon that a friend of mine from JHU, Sarah Doshna, was in the ICU, having suffered a massive intracranial hemorrhage.
Hours later, I found out she had died.

And that’s when I started to cry.

For her, my friend, Jeff, but mostly for their 3 young kids. There’s no making sense of it.
There’s no “why bad things happen to good people.” It’s a tragedy, plain and simple and asking “why?” doesn’t really matter. It just is and now Jeff is left as a widower and the kids have no mother.

Sarah wasn't in my class, but she and her husband Jeff (also a JHU grad) were a big part of my life there. Not only at “the K,” but also during my senior year voyage to every JHU lacrosse game (home and away) and MUCH in-between.

I was invited to their wedding back in 1997 and was living in Japan at the time.

Jeff emailed me, asking for my address, and I wrote back, “save your money, just email me the invite.”

So, he scanned it in and sent it…perhaps the world’s first wedding e-Vite.

Sarah was one of those people who was just kind, through and through. From Ohio, she had a midwesterner’s nicety and politeness about her.

Warm and inviting, I remember going out for one Shabbat to Flemington, NJ right after I had moved to NYC from Japan and we all just hung out.

She was an engineering major,uet, she wasn’t super stressed (as many others were). She had a relaxed demeanor, found A LOT of time to be involved in the Jewish Students Association and also work (with Jeff and me) at the Annual Fund raising money for the school.

There’s so much to say and, yet, so little to say.

Every now and then you have a life experience that stops you cold in your tracks, knocks you silly out of your day-to-day.

Sarah Watson Doshna, Z”L. Baruch Dayan HaEmet.