The Department of English and Comparative Literature was deeply saddened to learn of the loss of Sally Sasz ’21 last month. She passed away on Monday, July 6th, while hiking in Utah. Sally was an Art History and English major, concentrating in Creative Writing.
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In the words of Professor Bland Simpson:
Sally Sasz was a wonder, an inspiration, a beam of light.
That any single person could be so blessed with such prodigious energies and artistic gifts, such a genius for friendship, and such a true and loving heart is indeed a natural wonder, and that she shared her bountiful spirit so graciously is a wonder as well.
Tennessee Williams said that what was good, particularly for artists, was an “obsessive interest in human affairs, plus a certain amount of compassion and moral conviction, that first made the experience of living something that must be translated into pigment or music or bodily movement or poetry or prose or anything that’s dynamic and expressive.”
Sally knew this implicitly and certainly always had, for her care and kindness and deep compassion for others, coupled with her extraordinary dynamism and expressiveness, are the hallmarks of how the many people she touched and moved will always remember her.
“In the time of your life, live!” wrote William Saroyan, and if anyone ever took this great imperative as her own, Sally did, living each and every day to its fullest and its best, for she made time an asset, which she knew how to use and use well, letting none of it get away from her till she had made what she would of it, and made it worthy.
We knew Sally Sasz as the greatest of friends, the finest of students. We see her now as an even greater teacher, from whose deep devotion, boundless passion for life, and purity of heart we may all learn forever.
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To read more tributes to Sally Sasz please visit a memorial page created by the English & Comparative Literature Department dedicated to remembering how Sally impacted our lives.
