Darlings, What Could Have Happened To This Poor, Sweet Child???????

                                   Here we are, girls, on the cusp of the Second Anniversary of Tyler Clementi's tragic passing, when comes word of another university suicide. Different circumstances from Tyler, to be sure, but one leaving in its wake heartbreak for the students, faculty and the suicide's family.

                                       Marta Corey-Ochoa seemed ready for success. She was accepted at Columbia University, where she planned to major in English and Math, and made it through the hassle of checking in to her dorm room.  She was from Dobbs Ferry, and had been the valedictorian or her high school class there.  Her future was bright and unlimited.  Her parents were successful; the father was a writer, and the mother worked at Mercy College. She was their only child.

                                          One account said, without going into detail, she was said to have psychiatric problems.

                                             And something in her changed.  On Saturday evening, she went to a social orientation session on her dorm floor.  Two hours later, she threw herself out the 14th floor window of her room!!!!!!!!!   And all that remains is sadness, and questions which may never get answered.

                                                Weren't these problems spotted in Dobbs Ferry?  Or in the screening process at Columbia?  How could she make it to this point, and what happened that led to her tragic demise?  How does one make sense of a senseless act?

                                                    More to the point, and this relates to the tragedy of Jeffrey Johnson, the Empire State Shooter, why didn't Marta seek out whatever mental help she might have needed?  Or did she?  Or did her parents urge her to?  One has to be fair to all sides, but the fact remains there is help out there for the mentally ill.  Yet too many fail to seek it, mainly because they are so clouded they cannot see it, or peers don't notice, or choose not to get involved, and then there are tragedies such as this!

                                                       What a pall over those in that dorm, just beginning the start of their freshman year at Columbia, the rest of their life, really!!!!!!!!!!!  They too will have to deal with the trauma of Marta's death, and I hope they avail themselves of any help offered to them.

                                                            Youth has always been said to be society's best resource, as the future belongs to them.  So how about helping them through, so that they may be able to have a future????

                                                                I truly feel for everyone connected to Marta, and for Marta, most of all.  I can only pray we may be spared more senseless tragedies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                                Life may go on.  But a campus, and a family, suffers!!!!!!!!!!!