Summation: Auren Hoffman

with Auren Hoffman
May 4, 1997

DYING YOUNG
it could happen to any of us
by Auren Hoffman

Note: This was written in August, 1995
She's dead. She's not my mother or my grandmother or even a long lost relative. She's not my best friend. She was a classmate who I barely knew when she died, suddenly, four weeks ago.
Jennifer went to the beach with a group of friends to enjoy a rare warm San Franciscan day. While walking, ankle deep in the ocean, Jennifer and her boyfriend were swept away by one of San Francisco's infamous undercurrents. In only a few moments, both youths were dead - the boyfriend's body was never to be found. This, I guess, is dying young. Jennifer is the first young person I know to die. Jennifer was a promising student who had a promising life in front of her. I do not understand how someone so rich with vigor could be taken from us so quickly. I will never see her again.
Growing up in a sheltered New York suburb, I have been unaware of many of life's tragedies. I have seen tragedies happen on television. In Bosnia, young men are tortured and even younger women are raped everyday. But its so far from home that these horrible actions sometimes don't even seem real to me. Even those tragedies that happen next door, like our children who are dying everyday in the ganglands of the inner cities, pass me by.
But now, I think differently than ever before. Yesterday, riding home in the back seat of a sedan, I buckled my seat belt for the first time in years. For someone who is more afraid of death than anyone I know, I certainly have not been very precautionary. Next week, I am going shopping for a bicycle helmet.
I have come to accept, over the last few lays, that death is inevitable. The funny thing is, it took a tragedy to get me to think about it.

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