As the class of 2015 looks ahead beyond graduation, we also look back and commemorate those who died before Commencement. Friends and peers of Dana Dourdeville ’15, who died Dec. 31, 2013, honor the lasting impact he had during his time at Brown.
Dana and I met on the first day of freshman year, and we started dating the following summer. We became friends by telling dirty jokes, cooking with our friends, and doing yoga — watching a cross-country runner try to touch his toes was hysterical. He asked me to be his fishing buddy that summer, though we never caught any fish.
Our relationship turned out to be one adventure after another, with countless more planned for the future. He both challenged and supported me. Every day, with the exception of his summer in Peru, when Internet was scarce, he would tell me that I was beautiful and that he loved me. Even when we fought, he would take his time and explain his position clearly.
Every gift he gave me was either homemade or straight from the woods. He was patient, hard-working and relentlessly loyal. Dana understood me better than anyone, and I feel lucky to have spent the few years that I could with him.
-Sarah Schade
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My friend Dana liked David Hasselhoff music videos — the campier the better. He spent an inordinate amount of time successfully convincing me that chocolate mousse was made from actual moose meat. When we met at the beginning of freshman year, he was completely comfortable with himself and utterly un-self-conscious at a time when the rest of us were all trying to reinvent ourselves. He was always there for me, and countless others, when we needed a friend — he checked up on me and brought me a homemade card when a hand injury landed me in the hospital, and as busy as we got with our engineering classes, he always made it to my birthday parties. People who knew him would tell you that Dana was not just a good person, but an exceptionally good person, incredibly intelligent and humble at once. He was a silly, wonderful, giving friend, and he really made me laugh.
-Alexia Stylianou
