By Marianne Lincoln

I am awake early this morning thinking about the experiences I have had this week. One of my best friends, my classmate in school, and my bridesmaid, lost her husband. He actually isn’t gone yet, his acute event left him without brain activity in the ICU. She sent me a text. I rushed to the hospital and spent several hours of my last couple days visiting, hugging, holding her hand, being the friend that showed up.

The nurses are keeping him technically alive. Alive so that other desperately ill people we don’t know will be getting phone calls to prepare themselves for surgery. He is an organ donor. A liver some kidneys, corneas, and I have no idea what else, maybe even skin grafts will be helping many others at the hospital later today.

The school we used to go to together was retired in June this year and also today, its new replacement will be officially opening. It is a new life for our old Bethel High School and also a new life for the people receiving these transplants. We are connected, she and her son work for the school district now.

Our school, the school that trained us, also trained people who later became the EMT’s that took him to the hospital, trying to save his life. Some of those students became the nurses and doctors that tried to revive him. Nurses that are helping his body stay alive long enough to save others with much needed healthy organs. The technician running the MRI machine determined his brain was done and now the transport technicians will take critical pieces from him to other hospitals for recipients to have a fresh start.

Yes, it is a complicated morning and I really found it difficult to sleep thinking about all the people this is going to involve.

I know I need to respect the family’s privacy, but I also want to tell our classmates what a beautiful thing is happening at the same time this school is starting over. I love my friend for being strong and sharing her love for all the others that will benefit while she is grieving the loss of her husband.

You see, it isn’t just a school. It is a community and it is the love of the people that will occupy the new building, study and learn what the teachers are trying to convey. It becomes part of a much broader world of hope, love and belonging. We make life, we give live, we care for lives, we save lives, and we watching as lives end. From those lives, friendships, commitments, and efforts, we also thrive as a society.

Here is Bethel High School, a brand-new building, and so very much will be happening inside that will assist us in the greater revolving world around us, beginnings, endings, and transitions all at once. Thousands of students are yet to pass through these halls. Fresh eyes, new ideas, hard work, a few pranks, and fun happening at the same time. Friends, classmates, colleagues, and neighbors together growing minds and community that bring both ends to a full circle. It is not just a building, it is the people who will occupy it and where they go from here, caring for the world and the people in it.

Goodbye, hello, be well. Let’s do this.