One awesome thunderstorm

A young woman I know from Young Friends, the Quaker youth group I volunteer with as a chaperone, was killed by a car last Friday while on her way home from school. She was a junior in high school and really into music. She came to us as a pipsqueek little ninth grader with a shock of curly hair, and it had been so incredible to watch her grow into a beautiful, talented, and grounded (and very funny) young woman. Sometimes she was the kid who was talking when she wasn't supposed to be, but more often she was psyched for whatever was next, and willing to find play and joy in everyone and everything.

The last time I saw her was at Yearly Meeting. I have this vivid memory of her. We all rode the Broad Street Line together from where the group was staying in Germantown to Olde City. She and I were standing, and she was feeling kind of jostled around. She said to me "Wow, this is kind of bumpy." I agreed, and told her to bend at the knees and think of it like surfing. She thought about that for a minute and her eyes kind of sparked as she said "Ohhhh. I really like surfing."

The name of this blog comes partly from my work with kids, and how I experience people in adolescence to be like thunderstorms: incredible collisions of ideas and emotion, sometimes loud and a little scary, but always awe-inspiring and indicative of the power that is always all around us. Haley was one awesome thunderstorm, and I miss her very much.