Stouffer Dutch Auction/BBQ
On the Sunday afternoon after each Spring Fling in April, Stouffer College House holds its annual Fling Barbecue and Auction. Melissa Sengbusch was a former resident of Stouffer whose dream was to attend Penn. Tragically, Melissa was diagnosed with leukemia after she was accepted to the Nursing School at Penn, and she lost her battle with the disease before she was able to graduate. To honor her memory each year Stouffer holds an auction to raise money goes to the Melissa Sengbusch Inspiration Scholarship Fund in the School of Nursing.
Love or Fear
(written August 17, 1999 after bone marrow transplant)
In my heart burns low, a fear only I can ever know
and with this haunting how can I live, for all my
thoughts to this I cannot give.
And yet neither can I ignore the painful situation
I am in and have been before.
An all too real truth I know
that the way things seem is not always what is so.
Love or fear, choose one, choose life.
Both entities will never in harmony recite
the songs of my soul -
So I choose love, but how can I? When I'd be
lying to myself, denying to myself that I'm not
scared of what could be.
A cruel reality has not been lost on me.
Faith in the world, the spirit of a girl,
trust in the order, the sacred rhythm of time
that pulls me forward
and brings me each new morn is what shall
bring me to love, and I shall no longer be torn.
