I met Melissa in 2012 in Geology class. We sat next to each other in the front row. Our prof was hilarious and the class was pretty awesome. Melissa experienced her first ever Tornado Warning during school. She was a little freaked out by our Michigander casual attitudes about having to crowd into an inner room until the All-Clear signal. We worked together on projects and hung out outside of class sometimes. I invited her to come to medieval events with me and finally convinced her to come to the event that I run for children and their families - It Takes My Child to Raze a Village. Her patience and help was invaluable, she came early to help with set-up, ran activities all day, and stayed late to help with clean-up. Her patience and spirit were amazing. She was so good with children. Kind and caring. Melissa was a great friend, I was so blessed to have her as a friend. We went to lunch a few times, and I always had to fight her for the check! She was so generous! I miss her so much.