In Memoriam

Well, it has been a bit since I last posted. I've started my next semester of school, and it did not start out the way one would have hoped.
I study anthropology (the biological side, not so much the cultural side), and in particular I like osteology and forensic anthropology. The person who inspired this passion, Dr. Karen Ramey Burns, passed away quite unexpectedly last weekend, two days before I was to take forensic anthropology from her. To say it was a shock would be an understatement of astronomical proportions- here was the woman who inspired the focus of my studies, suddenly taken from the world far too soon.
The head of the anthropology department himself informed us of this tragedy, and for that I am grateful. It was a far kinder way to deliver such horrible news than, say, a mass email. Given this, though, it was still an awful day for me and for everyone else who had known her or been inspired by her.
She helped to launch forensic anthropology to its current position in the scientific world, proving its importance by helping to identify victims of genocide, natural disasters, and acts of terrorism. She was one of the leaders in the attempt to uncover Amelia Earhart's fate. She identified remains after the attacks on the World Trade Center and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's destruction. Dr. Burns helped to found an NGO in Colombia with the purpose of assisting families of victims in Colombia's current guerrilla war. She worked in Bosnia, Haiti, and Guatemala, to name a few.
Dr. Burns didn't do any of this to become famous; a person in this kind of field never does. She did what she did because she cared about people, both the dead and the living they left behind. It takes a strong person to be able to deal with these kinds of remains, and Dr. Burns was one of the strongest individuals I have ever encountered.
I only regret that I only had a year of her time. I sincerely wish I could have had the opportunity to know her better. In such a small amount of time, I was so inspired by everything she had to say. It entirely altered my view of the world, and my view of the dead. Her attitude towards physical anthropology changed my mind about what I wanted to do with my life. I have always had it in my mind that I want to help people, but Karen Ramey Burns made me want to help people who no longer had a way to help themselves. Her attitude made me want to help bring some closure to the families of those people.
Beyond that, Dr. Burns inspired me because her life flew in the face of the attitude that a woman can have a career or a family, but not both. I was already raised by a woman who disproved that theory, and I've never bought into that kind of bullshit thinking. Here was a woman who had managed an impressive career in a difficult field while raising a family. It inspired me further, with the idea that a woman could have a family while traveling the world to do work she believed in wholeheartedly.
To lose such a person is awful. Putting aside my own admiration for her, I thought of her children, and grandchildren. I thought of all the families she helped, all the students she taught, all the people she inspired. It breaks my heart to think of how fortunate I was to get to spend any time with such an inspiring mentor, and how much so many other people will be missing from their own lives because they never had the opportunity I had.
I imagine that such a glowing memorial of a person I hardly knew seems silly. Maybe I seem obsessed. I'm alright with that, because I know that these are genuine sentiments. When I entered school at University of Utah, I didn't know what I want to do. Dr. Burns changed my life, and now I know what I want to do. I've met plenty of people in the past that I respected and admired, but few that have truly changed my outlook on life. The world has lost one of the greatest people to ever grace its surface.