|
|
| In
Remembrance
|
Latest
NRI family benefits!
|
|
She Lives on as a Gift to Others
|
|
Even after her ashes were scattered in the Cahaba River,
Anoopa Sharma lives on, in the smile of those who were blessed with the gift of life.
BY VEENA RAO
|
|
On a somber afternoon in the last week of March, the Emory University community, and friends and family of Anoopa Sharma came together at the Cannon Chapel at the Emory campus, to grieve the tragic loss of the bright, vivacious student in a road accident a few days earlier. The 200 strong crowds were drawn to her tragic and inspiring story.
They recounted how Anoopa had touched the lives of so many
people during her short, yet meaningful journey on earth.
|
Anoopa Sharma was a 24 year-old first year public health student, pursuing a doctorate in epidemiology. On March 5th, she was driving back to Atlanta from a conference organized by Physicians for Human Rights at the University of Alabama at Birmingham with fellow Emory student and friend Jed Stevenson. They were on a two-lane highway when a car coming from the other direction pulled into their lane, and collided into theirs. Anoopa was thrown out of the car due to the impact. She was rushed to the UAB Birmingham Hospital with major injuries to her brain, lungs, and her left leg. She hung on in a coma for nearly nine days and passed away on March 14th. Stevenson escaped with a broken rib and injured finger.
Anoopa’s ashes were scattered in the Cahaba River, by her parents Dennis and Anita and sister Uttama. The young woman continues to live; giving life, hope and joy to several other families even in death. Anoopa’s heart, liver, and pancreas were all given, within a few hours of their removal to patients in the Birmingham hospital. Her right kidney was sent to someone in Oregon and her left kidney was given to her aunt in Atlanta. “A member of the organ transplant team told us that Anoopa’s organs could potentially help improve the lives of 108 patients. All in one day! Her blood type is O- (the universal donor) which makes the pool of people to which her organs can be donated larger,” says a posting by her sister Uttama on her Web Site,
http://www.anoopa.net/.
|
 |
Anoopa was a Woodruff Scholar and an active member of the Rollins School of Public Health’s International Students Association for Health and Human Rights. Her deep-rooted desire to help the needy and to work for human rights took her Thailand, Bangladesh and Ghana as part of her internship with the Centers for Disease Control. She was especially involved in efforts to raise money for tsunami relief in southeastern Asia.
A memorial service will be held for Anoopa at Rajdhani Mandir in Chantilly, Virginia at 3 pm on April 2nd.
To honor Anoopa and her wishes to help the needy, her
family, Dennis, Anita, and Uttama Sharma have established
the Anoopa Sharma Memorial Fund. The fund will provide
support for a school in North India which Dennis and
Anoopa visited together in the summer of 2004. The school
is a girls’ high school in a small village called
Atrauli, in the Utta Pradesh where both Dennis and Anita
were born.
|
|
Anoopa and Dennis were appalled and saddened to find so much lacking in basic school needs. They agreed that they would find some way to help improve the conditions at the school - merit scholarships, library, desks and chairs, drinking water fountain, repair of classrooms and other much needed facilities at the school. The Sharmas hope that the people whom Anoopa touched might find this a fitting and gratifying opportunity to help execute a project Anoopa hoped to work on herself.
Contributions can be sent to:
ANOOPA SHARMA MEMORIAL FUND
Act# 25522000
Lafayette Federal Credit Union
3535 University Blvd. West
Kensington, MD 20895
U.S.A.
|
 |
A posting by her roommate on her Web Site says she found what she believes Anoopa wrote on a torn sheet of paper. "Live this day! Yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Never agonize over the past or worry over the future. Live this day and live it well."
Even as her family grapples with the pain of loss, they can take refuge in the fact that Anoopa’s short life was meaningful, as was her gift to so many others after she passed over. |
|
|
|
