Sunil Tripathi Rest in Peace

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On April 23 our beloved Sunil was discovered in the waters off India Point Park in Providence Rhode Island the Tripathi family said Thursday in a statement on the Facebook page they had set up to find him. Their words are as loving as their search has been since Sunil Tripathi walked out of his apartment near the Brown campus on March 16th and disappeared. He left behind his cell phone and a note that apparently didn t say much but was enough to remind his family of what they already knew that he had suffered from depression that they wanted him to come home that they would do nothing but embrace him if he did. His parents who lived in Bryn Mawr and his siblings came looking for him in Providence where he was taking time off from studying philosophy with flyers and a video of his friends talking about what they would do when he got returned. ( I can t wait until you come back so we can go and get the spinach calzone. )

Last Thursday with a shoot out in Watertown a swath of the Web convinced that Sunil was a fugitive mad bomber who had just killed a police officer and the family forced to take down its Facebook page because of all the hateful things written on it some commentators on Reddit and Twitter looked at that video and saw who and what they may have wanted to see. That lack of criticism of even a gentle complaint for worrying them the note of unconditional acceptance and affection Were they trying to tell him that they forgave him that it wasn t too late to drop some nefarious scheme It was as if they knew What they knew all they knew was that they loved him.

There is no reproach in the Tripathis note now not of Sunil certainly but also not of the rest of us who may in fact deserve it. As we carry indescribable grief we also feel incredible gratitude. To each one of you from our hometown to many distant lands we extend our thanks for the words of encouragement for your thoughts for your hands for your prayers and for the love you have so generously shared that is what a family subjected to a historic level of ungenerosity writes. There is no word yet on Sunil s cause of death or exactly when he died if when police were surrounding Dzokhar Tsarnaev in a boat in a driveway Sunil had already slipped into the river in another state. He was identified through his dental records after a rowing coach of Brown s crew team saw a body. The first reports indicated that the press was informed before his family. Were they at least spared that Sunil was twenty two years old. Take care of one another the Tripathis wrote be gentle.

Photograph by AP Photo/Brown University.

E mail Amy Davidson

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