Column: Saying goodbye is almost never easy

 

This semester has been a stressful one. Long hours and late nights have consumed my life, but I wouldn't trade the experience I gained.

 

 

I've thought a lot about what I would write in my last column. My intention was always to address my last column as Editor in Chief to everyone I love, because I couldn't have survived this semester without them.

 

 

Last week gave me new perspective on love and what's important.

 

 

Family, friends and the people I love have always been most important in my heart, but maybe not in my actions. When my friend and colleague Ryan Rendleman died in a car accident last week at the age of 22, homework and work and cleaning my room paled in comparison to hugging my friends and coworkers.

 

 

Last week made me realize I hadn't been acting on what my heart was telling me as much as I should have been.

 

 

In some of Ryan's homework we found after the accident, he wrote about how he wished he reached out to people more. In the past week I've heard countless people say Ryan was the first something - friend, person to understand something or to reach out to them.

 

 

At the risk of sounding redundant, Ryan was one of the first people I met at the Daily Egyptian. I'm sorry to say I didn't really get to know him until we both joined the campus desk a semester later.

 

 

That semester Ryan had a mission - a mission to "get to know" everyone on the desk. He would ask random questions about our family, classes, past -anything was fair game. He asked me what my middle name was at least once a week because he could never remember.

 

 

Ryan was an inspiration to us all and I've made it my new mission to "get to know" everyone better and take more time for the people I already know.

 

 

I'm going to try to have more conversations with my friends in the newsroom about things that have nothing to do with the newspaper.

 

 

I'm going to plan more trips home to see my family and give my boyfriend Paul all the time and attention he deserved this semester. I couldn't have survived without you, Paul.

 

 

I'm also going to try to reach out to new people in my classes, at parties and even out at the bar.

 

 

Reaching out to people is a scary mission for me to undertake. I definitely would have described myself as a shy person until about a year ago when I realized life just didn't leave time to waste on being shy.

 

 

I remember one conversation Ryan and I had about a class I'll be taking in the fall, one he was in this semester. He told me how hard it was going to be, but then told me that I would learn a lot and needed to do it.

 

 

Ryan would always tell you how hard something was and then tell you that you needed to do it anyway.

 

 

In true testament to Ryan, and as hard as it is, I'm going to let him go. I know he'll always be with me, and I will do my best to reach out to those around me.

 

 

Ryan, you will truly be missed.

 

 

Lohman is a junior

 

 

studying journalism.