Dear Notre Dame,
On Nov. 7, our pal Matt Garber committed suicide.
You might not have talked to Matt, but you might recognize him. He was the guy in the pink sweater, eating cookies at Waddick's. He had a ponytail and square black glasses. He rode a bike, slept on South Quad benches, wrote like Borges and made movies like neon static and fireworks. He might have audited one of your classes.
Matt enrolled at Notre Dame in the fall of 2002. In-between then and now, he went to the University of Chicago, worked in a bakery, went fishing and became very, very sad. This fall, he returned to the Notre Dame campus to reconnect and reapply. I last saw him in a Dairy Queen parking lot. He was eating a Blizzard.
Bottom line: Matt was an intense and lovely person. If you, like me, are missing him, then I am sorry; I am also sorry if you did not know him. Please take this letter as my equivalent of putting his name in lights across South Quad, and amidst the craziness that is a Notre Dame December, say it to yourself a few times: "we miss you, Matt Garber."
Thank you.
Mairead CaseseniorOff-campusDec. 1
