University Joins Together in Mourning

On Tuesday, January 19, the University community came together on Low Plaza for a candlelight vigil to honor the lives of Columbia College sophomore Olivia Erhardt, Barnard College junior Daniella Moffson and Abigail Flanagan, a student at the School of General Studies who was also a nurse practitioner at Columbia University Medical Center. They died in a bus accident in Honduras on January 12 while volunteering with the Columbia chapter of Global Brigades, an organization providing medical and other support to struggling populations around the world.

Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger and Barnard President Debora Spar were among the speakers at the vigil organized by the Office of University Chaplain Jewelnel Davis. Here is what they said:

University Tribute by Lee C. Bollinger

It is with a deep sense of sadness that I extend our condolences to the families of Olivia Erhardt, Daniella Moffson, and Abigail Flanagan, speaking for myself and my wife Jean, for the Trustees, and for the entire University community.

I also wish express our concerns and best wishes for a quick and full recovery to all of our other students who were injured in the accident in Honduras.

And, importantly, I would like to extend our collective thanks to the many colleagues in the College, School of General Studies, School of Nursing, Medical Center, Student Health Services, and throughout the administration of the University and Barnard who have worked so hard to help everyone, most especially those involved in the accident and their families, to cope with this tragedy.

I would like to say just a few words about Olivia, Daniella, and Abigail.

I think we all feel that this shocking, even incomprehensible, loss of life is made all the more difficult and poignant by the fact that it happened to brave and caring individuals who were engaged in extending themselves in order to help others very much in need. We identify with that generosity of spirit. They went out of their way to make life a little better for others who were suffering.

I’m sure they were curious about the world, found friendships in this venture, and wondered where it might lead them. Knowing what I now do about them as individuals, I am sure the real motivation behind what they were doing had to reside in that basic human need we all feel for help and to help, a need which, when we act on it, affirms our very sense of humanity.

Understanding this at a deep and meaningful level, as well as other basic elements of life, is what a great university like Columbia is significantly about. And so is it, too, about trying to grasp and come to terms with grievous loss, about appreciating the sense of community we seek in the face of loss, and about the collective grieving we must do in order to continue on. There’s nothing simple in any of this, which is why we turn to the works of the greatest minds before us who struggled with these issues and now help us struggle better—and be better people, as Olivia, Daniella, and Abigail were in the process of doing.

This is a terrible loss, especially for the parents, siblings, children, and husband of these three very special people. They were our students, our colleagues, our friends. They are now gone. But they stand for something important and will continue to be remembered for that. And the University, which they loved, will be stronger because they were here.

Barnard Tribute by Debora Spar

We stand here this evening in a place – a great place – of learning. A place for scholars and students. A place where reason reigns supreme, where questions have answers, and logic always prevails.

And yet we stand, and we mourn, an event that defies reason. A tragedy stemming from no great cause. And so many, many questions that have no answers.

Why were these three beautiful, smart, dedicated and deeply good people taken from us so early? Why did they lose their lives in the cause of helping others? Why them? Why now?

None of us – not even with the wisdom of this great university behind us – can answer these questions. None of us can do anything to stem the pain that has come from the loss of Daniella Moffson, and Olivia Erhardt, and Abigail Flanagan. We can just wrestle with the accidental cruelties of our world, and with the hard-won knowledge that it isn’t always fair, or right, or good.

What we can do, though – some of us who are a little bit older, and more experienced, though not necessarily any wiser – is to remind you that there is no right way to grieve, or to mourn. There is no guilt you should be feeling; no best way to remember those who died, or support those left behind. It is okay if you find yourself laughing a few days from now; they would have wanted you to. It is okay if you want to walk in their footsteps, or not. To continue to pursue your dreams and passions just as they were pursuing theirs. Just try to find solace wherever you can, and to comfort those – and there are hundreds on this campus and beyond – who are grieving.

Take a bit of Daniella and Olivia and Abigail with you into your own lives. Honor their sacrifice and make their stories, and their legacies, part of your own. In the words of the Kel Maleh Rachamim (the Jewish prayer for the soul of the departed): May their place of rest be in The Garden of Eden… May the All-Merciful One shelter them with the cover of His wings forever, and bind their souls in the bond of life. The Lord is their heritage; may they rest in their resting-place in peace; and let us say: Amen.