in memoriam
On a group blog like this one, which is also focused on largely public issues, it’s hard to know whether there’s a place for rather more personal matters. But I’d like to pay brief tribute to a wonderful young woman named Anna Woodiwiss who died, altogether unexpectedly, a few days ago.
I have known Anna since she was a girl; even when she was in her early teens talking with her was like talking with an adult — and no, I don’t mean a child trying to act like an adult, but really an adult, or what an adult should be: a deeply thoughtful person, interested in ideas and at ease with them, enthusiastic and sweet-natured but also capable of gentle irony. Anna learned from her parents, Ashley and Mary, a model of the Christian life as service to others, service without self-glorification, and she followed that model all her brief adult life. She worked for a time with one of the most extraordinary men of our time, Canon Andrew White, the Vicar of Baghdad, when he was involved with Coventry Cathedral’s International Centre for Reconciliation ; and most recently she worked in Afghanistan for the Turquoise Mountain Foundation. It was in Afghanistan that she died, not, as one might have feared, in some act of partisan violence, but in a sudden fall from a horse.
Her family are people of deep faith, and in the largest sense they will be okay; but their grief is now, and will long be, deep. Anna was beloved above all by her parents and by her younger brothers and sisters; but also, as far as I can tell, by pretty much everyone who knew her. Anna, well done, good and faithful servant; rest in peace.
what deeply tragic news, Alan. what a loss.
dw
— dw · Apr 4, 01:17 AM · #
Speaking as a fan of this blog, Alan, you can write about whatever you want to.
I’m so sorry for the loss.
— Freddie · Apr 4, 02:40 AM · #
Alan, I agree: you should write at will. Anna sounds like a lovely person. My heart goes out to her family.
— Joules · Apr 4, 02:46 AM · #
My path crossed with Anna’s a few years ago, when I used to go to the unbelievably early Bible study at St. Mark’s. Even at that early hour, she was extraordinarily mature and sweet.
I am broken hearted, yet I only knew her briefly. I am so sad for her family. I am also sad for the world, which really lost a bright light.
— John · Apr 4, 03:55 AM · #
A moving post, one that any of us would be honored to have written in our memory. Web discourse would be better if it more often reminded us of the not-famous yet crucially important people our society and world is better for having, even if we don’t often enough appreciate them.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 4, 04:10 AM · #
Alan,
I just got an email from a mutual friend with the news and could not believe that Anna has passed. In disbelief, I searched online hoping for an article about the accident. Instead, I found your beautiful blog. Thank you for holding a light to a short, but very fruitful life.
The first time I met Anna was as her baby sitter. And even though I would at times watch over the Woodiwiss kids, there was something so special about Anna that years later, we became friends. Anna inspired everyone with her passion to serve others. I would keep up with her adventurous life through pictures she sent and comments she made on Facebook. It is sad that Our Lord took this precious young lady home. I have never met someone like Anna — she had this amazing ability to pack every moment with significance. She was truly an inspiration.
Again thanks you so much for you words.
Blessings,
Diane
— diane · Apr 4, 06:19 AM · #
As a Christian and as someone who is thinking more and more about the kind of children he wants, she sounds exactly like the kind of daughter I would want to have. I can only imagine the loss. Thank you for sharing this. I will say a prayer. RIP.
— PEG · Apr 4, 08:39 AM · #
Thank you all for your kind words.
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 4, 02:36 PM · #
Anna woodiwiss, was a beautiful young women :) She touched many lifes.
I will always remember her; kind heart, she was blessed with intelligent’s,her beautiful smile, her love for the Lord, she cared so much for others :) I am just one, of many, who will miss her. I am blessed; I was given the chance to have known her.
I am, parying for you Ashley, Mary, Aerial, and Noha.
If you have any prayer request, needs, please email me :)
I have wonderful memories, of Anna :)
She will be missed. I send my love…
Heidi
— Heidi Uhlenberg · Apr 4, 06:52 PM · #
Alan,
Great writing! Even more so, great tribute to Anna. My wife, Jeanne, has been Anna’s aunt’s best friend for years. I met Anna when she was a preschooler, shortly after marrying Jeanne. We visited Ashley and Mary’s home when Ashley was in college with goals of further studies in political science. We lost touch with Anna and her family, but was kept up to date through the years by Ann, Ashley’s sister who works with Precept Ministries in Chattanooga, TN. I just heard of Anna’s passing today, Sunday, April 6th. We will be in prayer for Anna’s family and for Ann.
God bless you.
John Rosal (Greenville, NC)
— John Rosal · Apr 7, 02:45 AM · #
I met Anna about four years ago in D.C. through my former roommate. Among the many friends I have made since finishing college, she was among the most unique, funny, charming, and inspriring. She was my indie-movie-going friend, the friend who taught me how to make homemade hot chocolate, the friend who spoke well and listened well, the friend who lived passionately. To have lost her is such a tragedy.
I will miss Anna very much. Through her memory I will always be reminded that life cannot be measured or valued in its length, but rather in the fullness of how it was lived from day to day.
— Brian · Apr 7, 03:31 PM · #
I was one of Anna’s high school teachers and remember her fondly. I’m so sorry and will keep the family in my prayers.
— Phyllis · Apr 9, 02:03 PM · #
I have just come from Anna’s funeral. We are blessed at The Church of the Resurrection that the Woodiwiss family chose to join us. I have grown fond of them, but had no idea until today what a magnificent person Anna was. That friends from afar and from the past would come to our small town to stand in the church and say what she meant to them was so moving. Even her mother shared some early memories. Her life is a testament to the faith in which her parents reared her, and to the love of God and others to which she dedicated that life. May God’s light continue to shine through the work she did and the lives she touched.
— Sara Kummer · Apr 13, 11:24 PM · #
Reading this news has taken my breath away. I remember 11 or 12 year old Anna proudly showing a group of Wheaton College political science majors her most recent homeschool projects, then sitting down with us and her parents to watch Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V and afterward, naturally and unabashedly joining in the discussion of the film with insight and sensitivity beyond her years. The image of that home, that family and that night, is one of the treasured moment-in-time memories that come immediately to mind when I think of my college years.
My heart goes out to Ashley and Mary, and to Anna’s siblings.
— Karl · Apr 15, 06:50 PM · #
Some of Anna’s journals and other writings can be found here:
allmannerofthing.blogspot.com/
— David Montague · Apr 16, 04:13 PM · #