Taking a black framed photograph from her bookshelf, McKayla Linz smiles at the captured memory from a previous vacation with her boyfriend, Lucas Marcelli. While grasping the photo in hand, Linz reminisces about their trip to Mackinaw Island in Michigan.
Yet her smile is subtle because photos of Marcelli are all Linz now has to mourn the loss of her best friend. He died in a plane crash almost two months ago and she is trying understand why he was taken from her.
On Aug. 25, 2014, a Cessna 172 aircraft crashed a few minutes after takeoff late in the evening in Willoughby Hills, Ohio near the Cuyahoga County Airport. Marcelli and three other Case Western Reserve University students lost their lives in the accident. Prior to the flight, Linz felt anxious about Marcelli being in the air. Marcelli sent his last text to Linz at 9:37 that night.
A month after the tragedy, Linz does her best to cope with Marcelli’s loss by staying occupied on Ohio University’s campus. Initially, Linz contemplated staying home in Canton, Ohio for a semester; however, she decided to go back to Athens but took on less course work than she had originally planned. Now a junior, she stays busy keeping up with her schoolwork as a psychology pre-physical therapy major and competes for the university’s club gymnastics team.
Marcelli always motivated Linz and supported her decisions. He wanted her to continue with her academics because he knew of her potential, Linz said. She keeps Marcelli in the back of her head when it comes to making these daily decisions. From eating well to working out, Marcelli shapes the choices Linz makes in her life even after his passing.
“McKayla is active and hard-working and she initiates the studying in the house,” roommate and teammate Katie Butler said.
While Linz is not doing schoolwork, she enjoys watching reruns of the TV show Friends with Butler inside their quaint, yellow apartment a couple blocks from Court Street. When Linz is not watching Friends, she watches her favorite movie Elf every chance she gets and keeps a Christmas countdown on her phone since it is her favorite holiday.
She starts each day with a cup of coffee with caramel macchiato creamer and two packets of Sweet ’N Low in hand. Linz cannot live without peanut butter, chocolate milk and honey. Linz said she doesn’t really cook, but jokes about pre-heating the oven and only helps in the kitchen by boiling things and heating things up.
“She just walks in the kitchen to check in on us,” Butler teased.
Watching movies, cleaning, spending time with friends, and exercising are activities Linz engages in to distract herself from her recent loss.
“Getting used to the new reality of it is hard,” Linz said. “I can pretend it’s not happening when I’m distracted but when I’m alone, it hits me all over again.”
When distractions aren’t enough, she attends grief counseling once a week. “When I’m distracted, I bottle it up for a few days,” Linz said. “I get time to vent and cry about it and it allows me to set aside that time for Lucas.”
Another way Linz copes is by not sleeping alone. Ever since the first weekend when she and all of her roommates moved back down to Athens, Ohio, they decided to have a miniature sleepover in their apartment. Having a sleepover with Butler every night became a ritual, especially after losing Marcelli in the plane crash.
“McKayla avoids her room,” Butler said. “Ninety percent of the time she’s upstairs with me.” Butler added that Linz does not go into her room more that she has to.
Linz keeps her faith strong by attending Christ the King University Parish on Stewart Street every Sunday evening with Butler. “Faith is all I have to rely on,” said Linz. “God is the only one that knows what the plan is.”
Throughout her own grieving process, Linz talks to others who are dealing with her same pain of losing a loved one. Marcelli’s best friend Kyle Harris who wrestled with Marcelli copes with his own loss by texting Linz every day.
“Knowing that she is strong enough to help me after losing her boyfriend alone strengthens me,” said Harris. “Not many people would have the strength to put others before themselves after a loss.”
Keeping Marcelli close to her heart, Linz relives memories when she looks at the photos of herself and Marcelli placed in frames and scrapbooks. Pictures make her smile because he looks happy and it brings her back to the good times they had together. From pictures at high school dances to that vacation in Mackinaw Island, Linz looks at the photos because they’re helpful to actually see him, she said.
In addition to looking at photographs of Marcelli, Linz keeps Marcelli close to heart everyday by wearing a diamond infinity ring and a silver heart locket necklace with “You’ll always be my favorite girl. Love, Lucas” engraved on the back. She sleeps with (does not wear) an old black Jackson high school sweatshirt with his name printed on the back of it.
“We definitely pictured a future together, so it’ll be hard to move forward and picture my future. It’ll be hard to not compare him to anyone else.”
Linz explained how a family friend’s fiancé died in an accident. She asked for advice from her. Learning to accept the “new normal,” stop asking the question “why,” and knowing Linz will find someone who is as good as him in a different way were some words of wisdom Linz took into consideration.
Linz’s younger sister Meghan, 18, commented on Linz’s and Marcelli’s relationship.
“Luke taught McKayla the true meaning of love and how to devote herself to someone else,” she said. “They were perfect compliments of each other.”
Before Linz and Marcelli started dating, Linz said she “friend-zoned” him for the longest time. They went on a few “first” dates but Linz was uninterested. However, after Marcelli’s patience and persistency, Linz’s relationship status changed on February 5, 2012. A few years later, she describes their relationship as being perfect, strong, loyal and supporting.
Even after Marcelli’s death, she still feels his presence and knows he’s watching over her. She purchased the book There’s More to Life Than This: Healing Messages, Remarkable Stories, and Insight About the Other Side from the Long Island Medium Theresa Caputo.
“I love [Caputo’s] show and I love her,” said Linz. “I’ve had a few dreams with Luke and she gives helpful insight of messages and angels.”
One day at Linz’s apartment, Linz left a scrapbook on a shelf at the end of her bed in her apartment. When she came home after a long day, the scrapbook fell to the floor and was open to a picture of Marcelli making a goofy face.
These photographs and signs help, yet challenge, Linz day-by-day with coping. She lost her best friend and can now physically hold on to the pictures of herself and Marcelli and the memories associated with their time together.
“I’m getting more of a grasp on things, especially what helps me and what doesn’t help me. I am able to handle myself better with time.”
Looking at her favorite photograph of herself and Marcelli in Mackinaw Island once again, she reminisces at the framed image and continues to smile, knowing she’ll eventually see him again.
About three months after the accident, Linz is still faced with challenges that make grieving more difficult for her. When Linz goes back home to Canton, she finds herself getting emotional, especially around the holiday season. “I just miss him,” she said.
Linz said she is still getting more of a grasp of what helps her and what does not along with knowing how to deal with her overall feelings as time continues to pass.“Don’t expect it to get better right away…Expect it to get bad for a while before it gets better,” Linz said. “Don’t let it consume you.”
Since the original interview, Linz still obsesses over Christmas and still has sleepovers with her roommate. She now attends grief counseling every other week instead of every week. Linz also finished Theresa Caputo’s book and is now reading another one of Caputo’s books called You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: Life-Changing Lessons from Heaven. The new book gives lessons and tips that Linz can apply to her own grieving which is hopeful, she said.
The Lucas Marcelli Memorial Scholarship Fund was created to honor the late Marcelli’s legacy. The fund plans to reward a Jackson High School senior a scholarship award each year and eventually fund “a yearly undergraduate scholar-athlete award at Case Western Reserve University,” according to the website.
To make a donation or to contact the Lucas Marcelli Memorial Scholarship committee, visit www.lucasfund.org.