text: Embracing Carson's memory brings community together | Online Athens
  View, sign Eve Carson's Guest Book
  Each link represented a life touched or a mind opened by the 22-year-old former Athens resident killed last week in Chapel Hill, N.C., a mile from the university she adored and served as student body president.
  Friends added to the chain, a Tibetan-style prayer flag, Saturday night at a visitation for Carson at Athens First United Methodist Church.
  And in recent days, as the Athens community grieved simultaneously with students and faculty at the University of North Carolina, there was a feeling that if people kept at it long enough, they'd have a flag that could span the globe, embracing a world that friends said Carson found "excruciatingly beautiful."
  "Eve meant different things to different people," close friend Amble Johnson said Saturday. "She put a lot of energy and love into all of her personal relationships."
  Friends and neighbors from Cobbham, along with former Clarke Central High School classmates - joined also by some UNC friends who drove hours to show their support - nearly filled a 750-seat auditorium Friday night for a vigil at the high school.
  By sharing memories with folks from UNC and others all around Athens - black and white, old and young, outgoing and shy - Johnson said he's had an amazing experience comparing the Eve Carson he knew so well with the Eve Carson others knew.
  "Every single relationship that she had with all of her teachers, all of her neighbors, all her friends, all the community members, is completely distinct from all the other ones," he said.
  With Carson, a friend said Friday, even the most innocuous dinner conversation ended up in a deeper place, turning toward the meaning of life.
  A math class with Carson in it was the most laid back a Clarke Central High School teacher said she ever had - simply because Carson had the nerve to ask if she and her classmates could ditch their desks and take notes sitting on the floor around the teacher.
  With Carson, another friend said, a long drive back to school in Chapel Hill from winter break in Athens wasn't a monotonous chore - it was an adventure, a chance to visit a favorite restaurant off the beaten path, an opportunity to experience every good thing along the way.
  Even a brief, encouraging phrase from Carson - "Don't give up" - was said with such conviction that the moment became a milestone for the friend on the receiving end.
  The fact that the scholarly, world-traveling, infinitely enthusiastic Carson is gone, the victim of an apparently random and yet-unsolved crime, seemed almost too much for people to take in Athens, the city where her family has lived for generations.
  "I think the community is getting through it together," said longtime family friend and former Athens Mayor Gwen O'Looney.
  Friends on Saturday gave out 150 posters bearing Carson's smiling face so that Cobbham residents, many of whom Carson babysat or cared for in their old-age, would have a way to remember her, O'Looney said.
  "We're doing what every community does when a loved one dies - we're just a little tighter of a family because she was interwoven with our young people through babysitting, with our older people through a very serious commitment to working with our neighborhood," she said.
  A portrait of almost superhuman kindness and generosity has emerged from the memories shared recently, though Carson had her share of personal struggles and doubts, said neighbor and friend Mimi Elliott-Gower.
  But there's something else Carson herself would point out to her friends in the middle of their grief, said Elliott-Gower, whose three children Carson babysat for years.
  "Every word everyone says or writes is true, but I feel pretty certain that Eve would want everyone to know how special they were too," she said. "To have been picked by Eve as a friend says a lot about ... all of us."
  Gifts to the family, instead of flowers, are being directed to the Clarke County School District's Foundation for Excellence scholarship program, Elliott-Gower said.
  A memorial service for Carson is scheduled for 3 p.m. today at Athens First United Methodist Church, 327 N. Lumpkin St.
  MAYOR CLARKE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL ATHENS FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH PRESIDENT GWEN O'LOONEY ATHENS CHAPEL HILL AMBLE JOHNSON MIMI ELLIOTT-GOWER CLARKE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT'S FOUNDATION FOR EXC UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA EVE CARSON ENERGY TEACHER EDUCATION NORTH CAROLINA UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA