Rebecca Rau ‘11 and Maria Toledano ‘11
Roommates and Friends
On the weekend of April 5, first-year students Maria Adela Toledano and Marcus Egan took a roadtrip–just like any number of college students do on any given weekend–up to Akron to visit some friends. But while returning late Sunday night, they took a wrong turn in Knox County, just north of Granville, and traveled into the path of A native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a member of the Posse Program and La Fuerza Latina, Maria will be remembered by her Denison family for many things based on her short time here, but most of all for playing, smiling, dreaming, playing, creating, appreciating the small things, changing others’ lives, radiating, loving, and looking fabulous.
Maria’s friend and roommate, Rebecca Rau of Winnetka, Illinois, shared the following thoughts and Maria’s dream at the college’s Swasey Chapel memorial service on April 23.
Maria and I used to call our room the treehouse because it was just so much more than a dorm room. We were always happy, always safe, always dreaming, playing and creating. Most people who came up to the treehouse had a hard time leaving, and an even harder time staying away for very long. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that it wasn’t a magical room–it was a magical girl. Because now that Maria’s gone it’s not the same enchanted place it was before, it’s just a silly dorm room. She lit up every room we ever walked into. She lit up my life, and changed me in more ways than anyone ever has. She opened my eyes and my heart and I’m so grateful to have met her and that I can still feel her all around me every day. I wanted to share with you an essay Maria wrote about her idea of a perfect world.
My Culture
by Maria Toledano
My Culture is a carefree culture. Everyone gets along with one another and no one cares about peoples differences.
In the center of my culture is an amusement park. Everyone goes there to have fun and relax. However, before entering you must perform one ritual that is very important in my culture. You have to eat a magical flower found deep in the woods surrounding the town. Once you eat this magical flower you turn into a kid again. Everyone is carefree and only wants to have fun.
In the amusement park there are free games and rides for everyone to enjoy, including the worlds largest roller coaster. There are also all different types of food for everyone to eat at anytime.
Another essential part of my culture since everyone acts like a kid all the time is that everyone lives in a treehouse, there are no regular houses. Everyone is also required to carry with them crayons to draw with whenever they felt creative.
In my culture you are forced to go to school for only 8 years to learn all the basics in life. Then you have a choice to become whatever you wanted like a photographer or anything. The only thing that matters is what you enjoyed doing- because there is no money in my culture.
In my culture no one really grows old because once you eat the magical flower you become a kid again. Another property of the flower is being able to breathe under water. And in my town there is a huge lake where people live underwater. You can chose to live above or below ground.
So now, when I think about Maria I imagine her swimming deep under water, or playing around in a treehouse so far up in the sky that we just can’t see it. But either way–she’s somewhere nearby having nothing but fun.