|
Linda Trinh Eulogy
Dr. William R. Brody
President of Johns Hopkins University
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Our Lady of Vietnam Church, Silver Spring – 9:30 a.m.
Last
year, Linda was asked to describe herself and her future goals as part of
the application for her senior engineering design project. The few sentences
she wrote
say so much about her hopes and dreams for the future.
But they don’t say everything.
Linda’s own words cannot begin to encompass the great admiration and respect
of her many friends, of her professors, and of her colleagues in research. In
one laboratory,
Linda worked on a project to cultivate stem cells. Her mentor was professor
Hai-Quan Mao, who remembers Linda as a wonderful person, always smiling. “Everyone in the lab,” he
says, “fell in love with her.”
Professor Eric Young, who was Linda’s academic advisor and, for one class, her professor,
says he watched Linda evolve at Johns Hopkins. He saw how in this, her senior year, she
was preparing herself for going out into the world. “Linda was the kind of person you
look forward to seeing, “he says. “She was a person with ideas, and enthusiasm, always
interesting to talk to.”
Linda’s friends and sorority sisters remember Linda’s happiness. She always retained
her sense of humor. She was bubbly. Laughter came easy. She never failed to think of
others. She was a leader, someone who would become president of her sorority. Someone
you would naturally turn to, when you had troubles of your own.
For the past three years, Linda worked as an assistant in professor Joseph Gitlin’s
research lab, devising ways to use digital mammography to bring breast cancer screening
to women in poor communities. Professor Gitlin remembers Linda as one of those rare and
exceptional students who could grasp the research, and at the same time talk with women
of different ages and entirely different backgrounds and make them comfortable and at
ease. “She was so mature for her age, so courteous and respectful and sensitive,” he
says. “Linda was instrumental in helping us reach out to the community.”
These are the things people at Johns Hopkins say about Linda. You may not have heard
these words before, but these sentiments about Linda come as no surprise, knowing her
as you do.
And of course, you all know what Linda said about Johns Hopkins. You know how much she
loved the university, and how happy she was to be a student there. Linda was too kind,
too thoughtful, too caring ever to be called proud. But she was proud-intensely proud-to
be part of Johns Hopkins. She was in her element, in the community of scholars.
All of this you know about Linda. But what you may not know is how proud we at Johns
Hopkins are of Linda.
On her senior engineering design project she wrote: “I am a senior Biomedical Engineer.
This past summer I traveled to Viet Nam to observe the public health issues regarding
breast cancer. I also made time to volunteer at an AIDS hospice in Ho Chi Minh City for
a month. My goal is to obtain a doctorate degree… I hope to significantly impact the
world with my research… to lobby for better and more affordable health care services
for cancer and AIDS patients in third world countries.”
Linda Trinh was Johns Hopkins University at its finest-determined to use her intelligence
and faith and insights to advance knowledge in order that she might help other people.
Linda represented the bright promise of tomorrow. She was joyful laughter. She was our
best hope for the future.
With you today, all of Johns Hopkins mourns. We have all lost a golden glimpse of the
future. We have all lost a treasured daughter.
But we do not despair of hope, remembering Linda’s devout faith, and the comforting words
of the prophet Micah: “When I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall
be a light unto me.”
Not long ago, a physician from Johns Hopkins who served as an army doctor in Vietnam
had a six-year-old son who developed leukemia. After many months of terrible struggle,
the boy dies. And his father, reflecting that despite their very best efforts they could
not save their son, came to realize the only absolute sure thing in life is the love we
can give to others. And so he wrote about his experiences, and in particular, he wrote
these final words I can offer, this brief benediction for all parents who grieve:
“May we all find peace in the shared hope that our children who brought us such joy with
their short lives are now a host of angels, loving us still, feeling our love for them,
awaiting our coming, and knowing that they are safely locked forever in our hearts."
|
|