June 23, 2008 Today is Glory's 23yr old birthday, no phone call, no dinner, no birthday cake, but I had a letter and an email from Wellesley College

Department of Biological Sciences Wellesley College

Dear Mr and Mrs Hom,
I was your daughter Glory's professor for Cellar Physiology in the Sping, 2007 semester and had also been her professor in Spring 2005, the semester when she had to withdraw because of her illness. When I heard last fall that she had passed away, I was shocked and deeply saddened. Glory was such a bright presence in the classroom and the lab, and I was very much enjoyed getting to know her. At the time I heard of her passing, I was revising an article describing a lab series that I developed for the Cellular Physiology course. Glory and her classmates had participatd in a survey I used to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of the lab series, so I decided to honor her memory by dedicating the article to her. The article, which is enclosed, was published by the American Society for Cell Biology. The dedication is in the Acknowledgments section at the end of the paper. I hope that you will be proud to know that she left a strong, very positive impression on me, as on many, many others at Wellesley College.

Sinerely and with heartfelt condolences,

Jennifer Hood-DeGrenier

An email from Glory's best friend:

Yesterday with Glory

Yesterday was fittingly a day where the weather couldn't seem to make up its mind. One second it would thunder, and the next minute it would look like the sun might possibly be coming out. It matched the emotions I felt as I remembered that today I would not have to remind myself to call and wish Glory a happy birthday.
The day passed and as I was working I kept mulling over what to do for her. It was too far to visit her cemetery from Boston, and the Wellesley shuttle was no longer running for me to go back and remember her at Wellesley. I started getting frustrated at the complexity of celebrating her birthday...and finally started talking as if she were right next to me. Surprisingly, I felt like she was right there.
"Glory, where should we go? What do you want to do?"
"hm...let's go somewhere! anywhere!"
I started talking about how it might rain, and how draining it was after work...and I felt her giving me a deep look. "Sarah, it's my birthday!"
"Oh okay, fine. How about we go to finale? (a dessert place in harvard sq that had been a popular place for birthdays)"
"Okay! Just us two? please?" I felt her say, "You're always so busy. Jeesh sarah, just eat dessert with me. Okay?" It reminded me of how true that was. I had always been busy and Glory had always accommodated my schedule.
So we went to finale. Just the two of us. And I ordered us two creme brulee's, and asked for a candle in one of them. I sang her happy birthday, and somehow...whether because it was the candle glowing...or finale's atmosphere...or because I had bought happy birthday cards to write to her...the memories created at finale's started coming back. The laughs, the drama, our first-year...and also our last. And I started telling her stories about my workplace, the people I met, the funny incidents I encountered.
"Glory, happy birthday :) I miss you." I told her.
And she smiled the smile that defined her - the Glory smile - and laughingly said, "Reallllly? Then I'll be back!"
With that, our trip ended and we went back to our respective homes.

sarah