Nice to meet you, Kelsey

Gordon Meriwether
Published: September 3, 2008

Saturday night I watched as the parade of high school classmates and church mates streamed to the front of the church to pay homage to 17-year-old Kelsey Orndorff.

Kelsey was taken from us less than a week ago in a tragic automobile accident on a two- lane curve on Route 3 going to Fredericksburg.

I didn’t know Kelsey.

I don’t have wonderful things to say about what she meant to me or how just knowing her changed my life.

I can’t offer praise about her athletic and academic accomplishments.

No, to me Kelsey was the daughter of my pastor and friend, Randy, and that was it.

So to see this outpouring of compassion and love from these young people was my introduction to Kelsey. Through their testimony, I have met Kelsey this week.

Kelsey wasn’t different than any other 17-year-old, except that she had a number of positives to believe in.

First and foremost she had her family: her parents, brothers and uncles and aunts and grandparents.

They were the major influence in everything that was Kelsey.

Secondly, she had her faith and through that faith a commitment to her fellow man no matter their station.

Third, she had friends and teammates that gave her that positive passion for excellence. She was a very remarkable young lady who lives loudly in the hearts and memories of everyone that knew her.

Listening to the stories of Kelsey opened my eyes about young people today.

Kelsey had a sea of posi-tives to believe in all of her life, and she shared those positives with so many.
Kelsey created positives with everyone she met: the homeless in Fredericksburg, her high school basketball teammates, the hungry in Culpeper, her church youth group; Kelsey planted the seed that grew positives everywhere she went.

If you believe in the inherent goodness of people as Kelsey did, you have to believe that kids are good as well.

But all kids need positives to believe in.

Without this positive influence they are susceptible to the darker side, a seedy side of life that has always been with us and always will.

Good kids can easily take the wrong path and never find their way home.

There are so many hurting kids in our world today who just need a positive to believe in; right here in Camelot and up the road in Warrenton and over in Orange; kids needing a positive to believe in; just one. It’s up to all of us to lift up the positives to our children; get them involved in sports or music, join a church youth group, do their homework with them, take long walks up Old Rag.

You can be a positive. Put a positive in their lives that they can hang on to.

Saturday night I met Kelsey through the stories and tears of those who loved her.

Her life testimony has taught me through the witness of her young friends that we can all make a difference.

It’s not too late, no matter the age, to reach out to the homeless, to feed the hungry, to stand up to wrong, or simply to gently squeeze a lonely hand.

I watched as they came forward one after another and I met Kelsey.

Nice to meet you, Kelsey.
Gordon Meriwether is an independent columnist who lives in Culpeper. He appears every other Thursday in the Star-Exponent. E-mail:

Donations
What: The Kelsey Orndorff Memorial Fund,
Culpeper United Methodist Church,
1233 Oaklawn Drive,
Culpeper, Va. 22701