Friends and family reflect on life and spirit of Meghan Sennott

A memorial service to take place May 25 in Minneapolis will honor the learned and adventurous life of Meghan Sennott, whose friends and family said she integrated learning and gaining new experiences "seamlessly" in her life before she died at the age of 20 on May 14, 2006, in a bus crash in Peru.

Although she was only a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University, Sennott had already traveled to many parts of the world, including to Oxford, England, where she met her boyfriend, Richard Gebbie. Although he was also traveling with Sennott on the bus that crashed in Peru, Gebbie survived and is recovering from his injuries.

Gebbie broke an arm and hip in the accident, according to Meghan Sennott's sister, Erryn Sennott. The British Embassy would not comment on Gebbie's injuries.

One of Sennott's close childhood friends, Mary Callahan, said Sennot met Gebbie at a club in Oxford and the two began traveling abroad together.

"What Meghan loved about Rich right from the beginning was that they both shared the same passion for music," Callahan said in an online interview. "Meghan always wanted to date a guy who loved music as much as her -- and she had found him."

When Sennott returned from England, the couple stayed together despite the ocean between them. Gebbie visited Sennott in Boston, and in early July of 2005 he met her parents.

"I'll never forget how nervous they both were," Callahan said.

Richard Sennott, Meghan's father, recalled the loving relationship his daughter had with Gebbie.

"They were both in love with each other and they traveled together," he said. "They were soul mates, truly. They fit well together."

After the bus crash, the Sennott family flew to Peru to retrieve Meghan's body. They found her in a morgue in Juliaca, across the street from a hospital where Gebbie was recovering from his injuries.

"We flew down to Juliaca ... to be with Richard," Richard Sennott said. "We wanted to be with the living. We flew down and we spent two days in the hospital comforting him while we were making flight arrangements for my daughter to fly back."

Richard Sennott said Gebbie is now a part of the Sennott family.

"I told him, when I first saw him, that I now have a new son -- 'you are my son,'" he said. "He will be in our thoughts and in our lives for the rest of his life."

When Gebbie visited Sennott for the first time, she took him around Minnesota, New York and Cape Cod, Callahan said. Following that, Gebbie moved to Boston to live with her, and then went along with her to South America.

"Right when I met him, I knew that he was great for her," Callahan said. "I loved how respectful they were of one another and how they constantly joked around with each other in such a cute way. It sounds corny, but they were the type of couple that could finish each other's sentences and knew what the other was thinking."

Sennott's parents last saw their daughter in mid-April when they visited her in Ecuador. Richard Sennott described parts of his relationship with Meghan as "mockingly formal," particularly his last words to her.

"I believe I said to her, 'Goodbye, daughter of mine, you know I love you,'" he said. "But that was mockingly formal, though -- something to that effect."

Richard Sennott said a particular bereavement poem by Mary Frye, titled "Do not stand at my grave and weep," embodies Meghan's spirit because she would not want people to cry about her death, because her memory still lives among those who she loved.

When she came home, Richard Sennott said, Meghan's visits were always "touch and go," with his daughter only staying a week or so before embarking on her next "adventure."

"When she was home, we were always talking about what she was doing and what she was going to be doing -- her future," he said. "There was always so much to talk about with her about her experiences. It was always a time spent recounting and telling."

Richard Sennot said Meghan's experiences shows how she has always been a "self-motivated learner," picking up new ideas and activities and always remaining passionate, and sometimes "overboard."

"We'd have to tell her, when she was very young, to turn the lights off and stop studying -- 'that's enough, you're done, no more,'" he said.

In elementary school, Sennott's teachers admired her affable and eager personality, Richard Sennott said, making parent-teacher conferences "always a joy."

"The teachers would plead with us for her to be able to come and visit them," he said. "[They said], 'If I ever had a daughter, this would be my daughter.'"

Sennott's mother, Laura Sennott, said because her daughter loved learning and because of her admiration of almost all of her teachers, she wants to thank them for giving her daughter the gift of education.

"She had a way of being able to, with most of her teachers all through school, getting really personal and close to them," she said.

Laura Sennott recalled how one of Meghan's elementary school science club teachers had first mentioned the Galapagos Islands to her for the first time, and since then, she had always wanted to travel there.

"At BU, she started to get into biology, and she found out there was an ecology program there with the Galapagos," she said. "She was set on going there. It was absolutely part of her whole dream. When she got there, she really thought it was just a magical place."

Sennott's uncle, Charles Sennott, noted that since she had traveled to Ecuador, Meghan had discovered an affinity for science journalism.

"I was really, really psyched about the idea of talking with Meghan about that, hearing what she wanted to do and helping her in any way I could define that path," Charles Sennott, a Boston Globe foreign correspondent, said. "The deepest sadness is the idea that we just didn't have enough time."

Charles was living in London while Meghan was studying at Oxford and his family got to know her well spending time with her and Gebbie. When at his house in Cambridge, Charles Sennott also spent time with Meghan while she was at BU.

The last time Charles Sennott and Meghan had seen each other was just before winter break in the fall of 2005, when he organized a "little gathering" of his nieces and nephews. Because of the snowstorm, everyone canceled -- except Meghan.

"Meghan, being from Minnesota, toughed it out and showed up -- not on time, because she was never on time -- like 'hey, where is everyone?'" he said. "So we just hung out with her and the kids and had hot cocoa, went sledding and had an awesome day together. It was really a great last memory of her."

Charles Sennott said Meghan had a joy for life and a contagious laughter.

"I've known her for her whole life," he said. "When we say she's the light of our life, we mean all of our family. She was really a great, great person. I think the only thing those of us who live on the Boston side of Meghan's life are sad about is that we didn't have more time."