Ole Miss Chi O story

[AGDAlum]

"We Thought the Sun Would Always Shine on Our Lives" is a story by Paige Williams in the May, 2012, issue of "O" (the Oprah magazine) about the 1987 disaster that befell the Chi Omega chapter at Ole Miss. The chapter members were participating in a walk-a-thon. A truck towing a hay baler crashed into the women's escort car. Five sisters were killed and others were seriously injured.

It's interesting to read Williams' description of sorority life [for a magazine audience mostly non-Greek] and her reflections what membership has meant to her in the years since, and at the time of a chapter reunion in January, 2012.

"Every spring five mothers receive cards and flowers from women who are now mothers themselves. And a boy who once loved a girl writes a check in her name, to charity. Every autumn....[a] father drives out to Highway 6 to repaint the five white crosses....Unbeknownst to the parents of one girl who died, the mother of another leaves flowers at her grave, otu of gratitude that her own daughter lived....A marker bears all their names...'So faith, hope, love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.....
Losing them taught us that we were more resilient than we knew, in large part because we had each other. And after all these years of remembering those five girls frozen in youth....it's a gift to see them now forever in the company of friends."

I searched the O Magazine website but couldn't find the article. You can get it at your public library for free (or you can buy it on the newsstand).