| Oct 2,2024
Today marks the one-year anniversary of Jamie Ambrosina’s (he/him) passing, a beloved member of the Mt. Holyoke community and part of the Class of 2025. I As a means of celebrating Jamie for who he was in life, his friends share the following message about him:
All over campus, there are little absences where Jamie once was or might have been.
To many people, Jamie exists only as a name, a face, or a quiet figure they once shared a class with; others have never known a campus with Jamie on it.
Some of us were his acquaintances, friends, roommates, or partners–and close as we may have been, even we only knew him for only a brief time. In any case, we should not be the only ones with access to his memory. No matter our relationship to Jamie, he deserves to be remembered as a whole person, and not only by his death.
Jamie was a biology and chemistry double major. The combined biochemistry track might have been more straightforward, but he pointedly avoided it so he wouldn’t miss out on additional biology classes. In addition to his excitement about the content, these classes offered a space for him to quietly goof off with our friends who shared them. Jamie also found friends on the ice as part of the Mount Holyoke Ice Hockey Team.
On Mountain Day, Jamie only ever walked up the road to the summit house. As someone so interested in natural sciences, it was surprising how little he liked the outdoors. For him, the highlight of climbing Mt. Holyoke was finding millipedes at the top; bugs, if anything, were his favorite part about nature.
Still, he did manage to bring what little he did like about the outdoors into his spaces. His windowsill was always full of plants–including those he accidentally absorbed from the rest of us after taking care of them over breaks. Even after a summer aphid outbreak wiped out a good half of our collective plants, his dorm was greener than most. And plants aside, Jamie’s dorm rooms were always heavily decorated–as were his jackets, his backpack, and his shoes. He was one of few people I know who had enough decorations to cover his walls from floor to ceiling. Nearly every room after his would feel empty by comparison.
Now, without Jamie, the empty spaces have spread.
Of course, Jamie had a life outside of Mount Holyoke, but it is here that we met him, and it is through his experiences on this campus—experiences that many of us share—that those who did not know him may find him more familiar, more real. In every biology seat left empty for him, in every hike up the mountain (though many of us have now experienced our last), and in every milestone we now reach, there is a memory and an anticipation of his presence. There is one less voice grumbling in the dining hall, one less body crowded into a dorm room for group movie nights, one less hand to hold while walking across campus, and one less name called at graduation. When you encounter these empty spaces, we invite you to consider not simply his death, but the vibrancy of the person who once filled them. |
