Here and Gone: Lizzy Seeberg

I don’t know where to begin. But it’s close to the end.

I only met her once. I remember her bright smile, and thinking that her eyes sparkled. She laughed, was polite. She seemed like a very nice girl. Like so many other nice girls that my daughter was getting to know in her freshman dorm at Saint Mary’s in 2010.

Then she was gone.

***

“Mom, remember that girl you met… Lizzy? Um…she…um…died.”

Died?

And the world keeps spinning. Oblivious to the tears. Oblivious to everything.

And I would learn the details. The public details, the private details, and not all the details.

Because can anyone ever know every detail?

***

Today it’s been four years. Or will be, at some point this afternoon. After 2:00. Before 6:00. I think. Something like that. I didn’t ask for that detail. I didn’t really care. It was some point in time.

When she opened the door and stepped into eternity, she didn’t really care anymore about time.