My school used to be a Tuberculosis Treatment center.5,000 people from all over the country came there in hopes of living.
Not for an art education, not for a change of scenery, not for vacation.
They wanted to live; to survive.
Most of them died on my campus.
For my class we are introducing ourselves to one of these people through the records that remain of them. I found a man named Sam Stahler tucked inside a manilla folder in the back of a cardboard filing box. Sam and me lived on the very same street in Philadelphia, only three blocks away from each other. About 60 years ago, Sam came to RMCAD from Philly, just like me. He left behind his family and his streets and everything he'd built his life around and come to know and was shocked, also, by the spaciousness of Colorado, by the thin air, by the towering mountains that you never grow used to; the snow-laden winters, the quiet people and he missed the bustle and motion of Philadelphia and felt the pain that distance created.
Sam died on my campus. He was 24.
Somehow this really puts things in perspective for me.
I'm thankful that I know Sam.
3 comments:
hertbreaking.
Kyrie, this post was beautiful and heart breaking. Seeing the photos and words you posted chilled my heart, and yet touched me to see how you so evidently care about this man. Little did he know as he lay dying that a young woman in 2009 would so compassionately review his life, and write a small essay in his memory.
you made me cry.
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