If this is the Rob Ranahan I knew, she was my friend at the Dana Hall School. Robin, when I met her, was an adorable, bubbly, outgoing young girl with tousled auburn hair and an infectious giggle.
She was one of the most charming young women I met when I began school there - a housemate in our special grouping for new Juniors. The first - really, main - thing I knew about her was how much she adored her handsome young father. He was the very center of her life, and his love for her and hers for him, were the hardest thing to tolerate in going to a boarding school.
I have never forgotten the pang I felt even then (I was too young to know what this meant, until I was much older - really, a mother, myself) the terrible day she was informed of the tragic death of her father. He had died of a heart-attack.
I have never stopped wishing I had been able to be more of a friend to her when she got this world-destroying news. I'm sorry to say, it was communicated with extreme insensitivity by our house-mother - not through cruelty, but because she was just not up to the task.
Not that anyone could have spared Rob the heart-break of that nightmarish shock. I regret not having stayed in touch with my dear young friend, but I have always suspected she never recovered from that tragedy. God bless her, her dad and everyone who loved her. She was a completely enchanting young girl, whom I have never forgotten as short as our acquaintance was. The sparkle in her eyes - "before" that terrible news - is before me now, in imagination.
She was one of the most charming young women I met when I began school there - a housemate in our special grouping for new Juniors. The first - really, main - thing I knew about her was how much she adored her handsome young father. He was the very center of her life, and his love for her and hers for him, were the hardest thing to tolerate in going to a boarding school.
I have never forgotten the pang I felt even then (I was too young to know what this meant, until I was much older - really, a mother, myself) the terrible day she was informed of the tragic death of her father. He had died of a heart-attack.
I have never stopped wishing I had been able to be more of a friend to her when she got this world-destroying news. I'm sorry to say, it was communicated with extreme insensitivity by our house-mother - not through cruelty, but because she was just not up to the task.
Not that anyone could have spared Rob the heart-break of that nightmarish shock. I regret not having stayed in touch with my dear young friend, but I have always suspected she never recovered from that tragedy. God bless her, her dad and everyone who loved her. She was a completely enchanting young girl, whom I have never forgotten as short as our acquaintance was. The sparkle in her eyes - "before" that terrible news - is before me now, in imagination.
