One Love

Yeardley Love

I never knew her

Saw her once or twice on campus

Didn't even know her name till the recent tragedy

But

Her story brings me to tears:

From Glamour Magazine: Who Yeardley Love Really Was:

(Love with her family: middle and top right, with older sister Lexie; bottom right, with her dog, Bandit; and at left, in eighth grade, with her mother, Sharon.)

Most people remember Yeardley Love as the victim of a tragedy—the face of dating violence in one of the highest-profile cases of the year. But of course she was so much more, her family and friends tell Glamour: a warm and funny sister and friend who was holding a lacrosse stick by the age of five and always dreamed of playing at UVA. “It is no coincidence that her last name was Love,” says her friend Molly Millard, “because that is exactly what she embodied.” 

. . .

Her family set up the One Love Foundation with the following mission:

One Love Foundation’s driving goal is to encourage and develop in children and young adults four qualities that Yeardley exemplified… service, kindness, humility and sportsmanship… that together add up to One Love. We would like to “bring out the Yeardley” in everyone by igniting the spirit of One Love in students, encouraging them to choose a path of goodness. Our hope is to keep Yeardley’s spirit alive in others by promoting strength of character and service.

. . .

“So let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” Mother Teresa, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, 1979