Staff Editorial: A new year's resolution

When the ball dropped in Times Square and 2001 finally came to end, people in that wounded city to our north and around the world breathed a sigh of relief, ever thankful that a year marked by such unspeakable horror and unending terror had at last come to an end.

At Penn, we welcomed the end of a year not only scarred by the memories of Sept. 11 and all that followed it, but the end of a semester in which death hit home, with three students meeting tragic ends.

While most of us focused on finals or enjoyed our very brief winter break, we lost four more members of the University community. Political Science Professor Alvin Rubinstein, Office of International Programs staff member Sajani Shrestha and her husband Subin, a Wharton computing employee, and incoming InterFraternity Council Executive Vice President and Wharton junior Yash Kasbekar died during the waning days of 2001.

For a community already reeling from loss and desperately seeking an end to the sadness that defined the past semester, the news is particularly disheartening. Returning to death and grief is not easy, and it seems only to exacerbate the pain of last fall.

While we cannot predict with any certainty the events of the spring semester, we can certainly hope that the tragedies we dealt with during the fall are not revisited upon us.

It would be inappropriate to say that the time has come to move on with our lives. What is incredible about the events of the last four months is that there probably never will come a time to move on. We cannot allow ourselves to forget the awful tragedies of Sept. 11. We also must take care to honor the lives of the seven members of our community lost.

Still, we must also not lose our faith that the new year will indeed bring us less sadness and less stress. We cannot forget, but we must continue to live our lives, enjoy each other and take advantage of the things we have.

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