Sydney Elizabeth Owens, age 25, of Charlotte, NC died in a skiing accident in Colorado on January 14, 2012. She was born on September 25, 1986 at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte.
Sydney is survived by Linda Barnett, her mother, Wilson Owens, her brother, Raymond Owens, her father and his wife, Sally Higgins, Ann Owens, her grandmother, and Lawson Hauptfuhrer, her beloved.
Other survivors include her aunts and uncles, Anna Owens and Tom Cook, and their children, Abbie and Gus, and Robin and Dennis McNeill. Also surviving are Tim Kirkman and Drew Barr, and Suzanne, Mary Wheeler and Grace Moyer.
Predeceasing Sydney were her grandparents, Sydney (her namesake) and Gerry Barnett, and R. Eugene Owens.
Sydney grew up at Myers Park Baptist Church and her spiritual life was always important to her. She attended Charlotte Latin School and Myers Park High School. She attended the University of Virginia as an Echols Scholar. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and sailed around the world in her third year through the Semester at Sea program. Sydney earned residency on The Lawn during her fourth year, the University’s highest leadership honor, and graduated with honors in 2009. Following graduation, she travelled to Tanzania to teach in an elementary school and explore many of the wonders of Africa. Sydney then moved to Denver, where she lived until her death. She worked first with Intela in Boulder and had recently taken a new job at DaVita in Denver. In Colorado she embraced the outdoors and all it had to offer.
Sydney, you started in red high-top sneakers and you ended on Kilimanjaro and the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. You started with not a tooth and your smile came to compete with the sunrise. You started in Charlotte and you ended a woman of the world and for the world. You started in a family of four and ended with thousands. What divides many in our community—the choice between public and private school; rich versus poor; white, black or brown; gay or straight—only made you richer.
Time is now both our friend and enemy. Our enemy, because it is fixed with the many but ultimately finite memories of you. Our friend, because pain will heal in some and will ease in others. But Time cannot answer the question of “What now?” Your life is the answer. Your call to us has been and is clear. If our work has lost its meaning, we must rediscover the truth and creativity that comes in accomplishment. And also work for others. If we have not travelled into the unknown or if we have forgotten the joy of new experiences and relationships in other places, we must begin the hike and follow wherever the trail leads. And also travel with and for others. If we have for some reason not started the music or the dance, or if we have buried or lost them over time, we must listen anew, pick up the instrument or get out on the floor. And also sing and dance with and for others. If our love has been lost in the ways of the world or in despair, we must now rekindle it in the new journey. And also share our love with and for others—the child, the stranger, the immigrant, the outcast and the alone. Your call was then and is the same now: Choose life!
A memorial service celebrating the life of Sydney Elizabeth Owens will be held at Myers Park Baptist Church at 11 a.m. on Saturday, January 21, 2012. Visitation will be private.
Memorials may be made to the UVA Fund, P.O. Box 400314, Charlottesville, VA, 22907 in memory of Sydney Elizabeth Owens for a scholarship in her name; or Semester at Sea, P.O. Box 400885, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, in memory of Sydney Elizabeth Owens.
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