This evening, I said goodbye to my friend Sylvia who will be relocating to Houston in a few days. In the coming weeks, several more of my classmates will be leaving the area. With all this time on my hands, I'm finding myself becoming very sentimental about our shared time together during some of the most difficult years of our lives.

Something about sharing extraordinary stresses, life/death decisions, 30 straight hours of work every fourth day, fulfilling expectations of being no-less-than-perfect... these are the common experiences that forge bonds for a lifetime. I guess we needed to find strength in each other in order to survive ourselves.

Frankly, I'm just going to miss being with all of them on an almost daily basis, and a part of me just wants to start crying. I don't reveal my feelings often, but I can honestly say that I love my class dearly - for who they are, what they believe in, and the difference they will make in the world.