You know, you can’t walk into this great big room and not see Eve Carson, right behind me where the students sit, with this great big smile that filled up this place, and her face all painted Carolina blue.
Try as I might, I haven’t gotten to the celebration part, for like so many of you, I too have been devastated.
I know how it hurts, for you see, as I told her mamma and daddy, Eve Carson made me feel special.
She made me feel like I was important to her. Eve Carson made me feel like I was her friend. And boy, I was.
As I tried to think, coming in here today, about what I wanted to say, I was looking through my calendar of what to do tomorrow. And attached to it was an email from Eve.
She had set up a meeting for me and the leaders of the student body to talk about how we take Carolina forward, and about the future of our university. Well that meeting’s still going to take place, because that’s what she’d want.
And we will talk about the future of this university — this university that she loved, this university that she loved to her very core.
So as I tried to think about how I could honor Eve’s memory, I decided that what I should do, what we all should do, is maybe just work a little bit harder — so that collectively, all of us working together can make up for the enormous good that this beautiful, vibrant, caring young woman would have continued to do.
I can promise you that I will do just that. And she will stay in my heart forever.
