Another tragedy has struck our quiet part of VA. Over the weekend I heard that a UVA student had died in a boating accident during her Semester at Sea off the coast of Dominica. http://abcnews.go.com/US/university-virginia-student-diver-killed-boat-propeller-dominica/story?id=17868006#.UL3yk7T3Bdg News spreads quickly in this town, but simultaneously I heard about Casey Schulman’s death via Facebook from Grandma Clown. Barry Lubin, who developed and starred as the world famous Big Apple Circus clown for decades, just happens to be my FB Friend. We met him a few times when the circus passed through Arrowhead Farm and the kids were little; and we continued the tradition after moving back to NJ, never missing their opening act at Lincoln Center. https://mountainmornings.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/did-you-jump/
Lubin is retired from the circus now, he has moved to Sweden, and has been part of the faculty onboard the MV Explorer for Semester at Sea this year, teaching among other things, a Physical Comedy class. You may have seen him interviewed on the PBS program “Circus.” I’ve vicariously enjoyed his travels, even wanting to tango in Argentina along with him, as you can tell by his recent post:
“…I clowned in Ghana, I hung out with an Ambassador. I saw baboons and penguins and an albatross. I sailed up the Amazon. I walked on Ipanema Beach. America, Canada, Ireland, England, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Ghana, South Africa, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and tomorrow Dominica. One day very soon, from dry land, I will look out over the sea and I will long to be on top of it again, sailing to the world.”
I wish all the students, the staff and crew onboard a safe journey home. I know that Lubin, who helped to start a clowning program in NYC hospitals for children, will bring his kind and caring support to those in need. I cannot imagine the pain of losing a child; I wish the Schulman family the strength, love and support to see them through this storm of grief. Prayers from a saddened Cville community are with them. Their daughter will forever be a 4th year UVA student, the girl who’s smile would “…light up an entire room.”
“She lived for twenty-two years, but it was the most resilient twenty-two years anyone could have,” said Sean Saadat, a biology senior at George Mason University and close friend. “She got to travel the world, she found love, she was loved—she did more in those twenty-two years than most people do in eighty.”
http://www.semesteratsea.org/2012/12/03/remembering-casey-schulman/
“Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.” Searls
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