“you don’t know it, but the world lost a giant”
By: Dave Boice
Tags: Church, Love, Garden

I was never good with plants.

After buying a house, I was thisclose to popping Zyrtec whenever my ladyfriend’s mom excited me about starting a garden. I knew enough about gardening that I should never garden. I barely get enough water and Vitamin D as it is. Why leave me alone with living-breathing plantlife that requires me to keep it alive? If anything, start me off with a Chia Pet.

The Bishop’s Garden at the Washington National Cathedral…where they know how to garden.

If this garden came to pass, I feared the Arbor Day Foundation would visit my house and gasp at my neglected flowerbeds. They would film a TV commercial with a Sarah McLachlan soundtrack, zooming on a lone, anorexic-stemmed daffodil who’d look innocently into the camera with it’s center eye. With the gentlest of breezes, it’s dried petals would slowly wither away as a 1–800 number would flash in front of the screen to save the remaining petunias from my backyard.

It would have helped if I knew Becky earlier.

The first time I said “hi” to Becky was last August to say “bye” to my best friend, Patrick. I’m never good with goodbyes, much less to my best friend. Their plan was to uproot from Madison to greener pastures in DC. Becky was passionate about gardening, so much so, she wanted to landscape a new life by majoring in plant science at the University of Maryland. While my visit with Patrick derailed into religious viewpoints (as it usually it does), Becky came to grab supplies for the going-away picnic. Instead of weighing in, Becky displayed a remarkable gift to seed new thoughts to Patrick regarding his indifference to religious acceptance. It was the first time I had seen someone (ANYONE!) weed his mind on the subject. And she was so gentle about it. Immediately I could tell why Patrick was so drawn to her. It wasn’t just the plants in her house that were growing. Becky was growing on me too.

Last month, I crossed paths with Patrick and Becky again in DC. The relationship didn’t workout, but they remained close friends. I had just completed my visit at the Washington National Cathedral and was thumb-swiping Instagram for a Medium cover shot. I came across the image in the header and showed it to Becky. She gave it a thumbs-up.

The President lives here.

A half-hour later, the three of us were sight-seeing the White House on peak cherry-blossom day when she had to bid adieu.

“See you later”, I said.

Considering Patrick told me he was planning to move and Becky lived 1,000 miles from where I resided, it was the last time I would ever see her in person. Walking in stride, I mentioned it to Patrick.

“That’s the first time I ever said goodbye to someone that I’ll never see again.”

I was still bad with goodbyes. It bothered me that I didn’t give an appropriate farewell to her.

A few weeks later, Patrick updated a Facebook profile picture of the two together in a loving hug. I was curious. Had they had gotten back together?

I texted to learn more. His reply came back.

“Becky was killed by a train.”

“not many people, on a global scale, know who Becky is, but the outpouring of stories and pictures from around the world is astonishing. i sit here and think about her and there’s a range of emotions and thoughts that happen… and setting aside my own personal thoughts and feelings about her and boil it down to something…man has the world lost out on a great amount of knowledge and ideas contained in her head. from how to treat people (which her actions more than fully embodied) to her research (which was so far above my head it took her graduate sponsor at her memorial on campus to make me fully realize how important and unique it was) to the way she approached life. i can tell you there are days where she cried because she was so stressed and so frustrated but she never gave the fuck up. no matter the obstacle or how unlikely a favorable outcome there was in front of her she fought. never anything less than with her full head heart and body. no one and nothing would keep her from capturing the thing she set out to do, ever. she was crazy in the best possible way and i can’t tell you how many times i shook my head at her. she’d give a knowing laugh, and continue on.

“you don’t know it, but the world lost a giant.”

— Patrick