A Memorial for Senior Jessica Korhumel April 23

Jessica Korhumel is described as “gentle and kind…warm,” “very happy, always had a smile on her face,” and “a people person, sweet and caring” by her friends and those she worked with at BU. Photo courtesy of the Korhumel family

A memorial service for Sargent senior Jessica Korhumel is being held Tuesday, April 23, in New Jersey. BU is organizing free buses for those who wish to attend. Find information about reserving a spot at the bottom of the story.

Like with many millennials, Jessica Korhumel’s social media profile revealed so much about her—from her playful sense of humor and her love of family and friends to her affinity for Christmas carols and acoustic music to her passion for the causes that inspired her. She shared simple phrases that helped define her (“Not all those who wander are lost”).

On March 26, Jess, as she was known to those close to her, a BU senior from Mount Laurel, N.J., died of natural causes at Massachusetts General Hospital following a brief illness. Only a few weeks from graduating, she was majoring in speech, language, and hearing sciences (SLHS) and minoring in deaf studies at Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences. She was 21.

“Anybody that knew Jessica loved Jessica,” her mother, Nancy Korhumel, told BU Today. “She was contagious and loved people unconditionally. Life is too short—you just really don’t know. Love the ones around you, be kind. I have to go on. We have to live life for Jessica and follow through on some of the things she wanted to do. Her life was cut short, but her bucket list was long. Kindness was the most important thing to her.”

Jessica chose to attend BU, her mother says, after initially wanting a school in Washington, D.C. But none of those schools worked out, and after visiting BU, she realized how much she loved Boston and the University, and she decided it was a good fit.

As a Terrier, Jessica was active on campus and off. She was one of five resident assistants in her 1019 Commonwealth Avenue dorm, and as a freshman in 2015 she volunteered in BU’s First-Year Student Outreach Project. She was also a student clinician in group therapy sessions at Sargent College’s Aphasia Resource Center and worked in a lab with deaf children as well. Off campus, she was most recently a receptionist at the Cambridge Eye Group.

Fellow RA junior Akshat Mehta (Sargent) is still struggling to imagine not having her around to laugh with or watch Marvel movies or Guardians of the Galaxy, as they often did. “I have never felt a bigger drop in my heart—I can’t describe the feeling and pain that I feel,” he says. “Everything about her was just something that was very personable. You could relate to her. She was very quirky, very happy, always had a smile on her face.”

They especially bonded over how others teased them about their home state of New Jersey, Mehta says, adding that the dorm’s RAs (dubbed the “Fantastic Five” by their hall director, Isaac Newsome) were a close-knit group. Jessica was always selfless, bringing the others candy, food, or coffee.

“She would have given the shirt off her back,” Nancy Korhumel says. “She judged no one. It didn’t matter what color, creed, sexuality, whatever. Everybody was just a gift. She saw that.”

At home in New Jersey, where she lived with her mother, her father, Timothy, and older brother, David, Jessica occasionally read to young schoolchildren and was active in the family’s church. Her mother says she remained active in her religion when she came to BU, and she also discovered a surprising new passion—sign language—which she embraced in part so she could communicate better with a relative back home.

“Foreign language didn’t come naturally to her,” her mother says. “Her uncle has Down syndrome; Jessica always tried to learn sign language. Now she had an opportunity. When his mom died, she was able to communicate with him. She had the compassion to take her time with him.”

She says her daughter had a unique ability to empathize, to put herself into other people’s shoes and feel what they were feeling. “She made me and people around her a stronger person,” she says.

Empathy was also the word Jessica’s Sargent faculty advisor used in describing her. “She was gentle, and kind. She was warm,” says Ann Dix, a Sargent clinical associate professor and SLHS program director. “She was just a loving part of the group.” Dix says that Jessica was thinking seriously about pursuing a career in speech pathology. “She was definitely a people person, sweet and caring.”

Greg McDaniel, a College of Engineering associate professor of mechanical engineering and a Faculty-in-Residence at 1019 Comm Ave, where Jess was an RA, was heartbroken over news of her death.

“She struck me as brilliant, full of life, giving. She wanted to get to know people on a deep level,” McDaniel says. “We had a lot of different conversations. My glasses broke once, and she worked for an optometrist on weekends, so she advised me how to get my glasses fixed. She just stood out.”

He recalls one conversation they had about the intricacies of how smoke alarms worked in the dorms, and he was amazed at how much she knew. When he asked her about it, she said her dad had explained it all to her. “Her love of family and friends, you could see it in her,” he says.

“You could see she always went above and beyond, to get people tokens and snacks,” says 1019 hall director Newsome. “She sent me a text one day to say, ‘What’s everyone’s favorite candy?’ That’s who she was. She was a giver. I don’t think I’ve ever met another person, much less another student, to give so much of themselves to make people happy. That’s how I’ll remember Jess.”

A “Celebration of Life” memorial service for Jessica Korhumel will be held Tuesday, April 23, at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, 61 East Route 70, Marlton, N.J. Visitation is from 11 am to noon, a memorial service from noon to 1:30 pm, and a reception will follow. Find more information here.