I think about Brandon Malstrom from time to time. Not just because I covered the immediate aftermath of his death, his funeral and the reception at his home, but because it could have been me.

I was at the party at which he was stabbed and killed. We drank from the same keg, brushed up against the same people, paid the same cover for a red plastic cup. But by chance, I left minutes before. Instead of accepting the cold steel of a knife into my abdomen, the result of a scuffle over a cell phone, I walked home, the wailing police cars and ambulances screeching down the street right past me.

I felt strangely connected to him by that party, and it was eerie to be at his funeral. I didn’t know him — didn’t even know anybody who had known him. His funeral was the first one I had ever attended, and I sat alone in a rear pew watching more than 600 friends and family sob as two relatives played a cover of The Beatles’ “In My Life.”

Afterward, I combed through the guests assembled at the family’s home, trying to gather information. I saw his room — immaculately clean, the walls dotted with skateboarding posters, lacrosse plaques and remembrances of friends and relatives who had passed before him — and spoke with his brother, Bill, who was still very much willing to submit to grieving but nonetheless submitted to an emotional interview.

At one point, a little boy walked up to him and tugged on his shirt, his tiny neck craned so he could see the towering adult above him.

“Brandon never would’ve known how many people cared,” he said.

A wave of emotion rush through him, his eyes instantly filling with tears.

“Yeah, he’d be touched,” he replied, just trying to get out enough words so he could compose himself again.

Moments like these — touching and pure, brought forth from disaster — have been all too prevalent during this graduating class’ four years. Three tragedies struck the campus during our first month of school — a precursor to what would be a tumultuous four years of extreme highs and lows perhaps unparalleled by any other class, not just for their unrelenting emotional impact, but because they started from our very first days as college students and didn’t stop to let us up for air.

It was my fourth week of college, and I was certain I was going to die.

The winds kicked up, the sky turned dark, and my floormates bustled with commotion. I walked down the hall so I could see out of the large windowpanes of Denton Hall’s seventh-floor lounge.

It was the first funnel cloud I’d ever seen in person, and it was terrifying — dark, angry and literally heading straight towards the center of my building. The terror attacks of Sept. 11 had happened just days earlier, and the images of those mighty towers falling were very much still burned into my memory. Could my eight-story dormitory withstand the force? It was no matter — if it was going down, I was going down with it.

The twister passed straight through the building, and everyone on my floor, huddled in the middle of the hallway, could feel its force as the corridor filled with smoke and dust.

Outside, the yellowish-gray sky lay still. Mangled cars were thrown over buildings, laying upside down on a basketball court. Trees were split like toothpicks, and a considerably large one had fallen straight across the front doors of the building. There were rumors that the right side of Denton Hall was caving in and that two more tornados were on the way. We only later learned that two students — sisters, at that — had died.

Tragedy in college is not meant to mean death — tragedy is failing a test which you studied more than two days for, or breaking your leg in a game of flag football, or ending a long-distance relationship that’s somehow lasted since high school. College is supposed to be the most exciting time of your life, but whoever coined that phrase likely didn’t have this in mind.

We were away from home for the first time and vulnerable, when we were pounded with as much psychological strain as we could take — get used to living on your own, meet new people, adjust to college life, and oh yeah, the nation is under attack from terrorists and your classmates are dying left and right.

Junior Alexander Klochkoff died within the first week of freshman year. On Sept. 11, the smoke rising from the Pentagon was visible from the campus, and two weeks later was the tornado, the strongest in the area in 70 years. In the spring, freshman Daniel Reardon was found dead inside a fraternity house, the night after accepting a bid.

The next fall, Malstrom was stabbed and killed. The next spring, Elizabeth Meejung Lee was shot in the head by her ex-boyfriend, miraculously surviving but losing her sight. State support was going down, tuition going up, and the basketball team provided ample reason for students to riot downtown.

Things were relatively quiet in 2004, however. The state was largely spared from further budget cuts and there were no natural disasters. Complacency swept through students as sports teams’ success fell flat. With graduation looming, senior year looked to be quiet, a breather for a three-year sprint. Graduation parties were being scheduled, the job hunt set into motion.

Michael Scrocca’s friends likely weren’t expecting to wake up early that Saturday morning, befogged after one of the last Friday nights of their college careers, to find out they would never see him again. A fire, now suspected to be arson, gutted his two-and-a-half-story home as he slept in his room in the back, a brutal reminder that we’re never truly safe, even in what is supposed to be the Utopian safe-haven of a college campus.

At Scrocca’s memorial service, friend Rob Tilley largely held his composure, telling funny stories about his best friend that had the whole crowd laughing and reminiscing.

Then, he turned to look at the large photo of Scrocca propped up on an easel, speaking to him as his voice grew somber.

He was the first speaker, but that was it for me. Like Malstrom, I didn’t know Scrocca. But anyone who has a best friend could imagine how gut-wrenching it was to no longer have that person around, but to be speaking to a photo in front of 250 people a week after he suddenly died.

Unfortunately for Scrocca’s friends — and those of Maurice Ferguson and Arvin Sharma, seniors also lost in these last few months — the melodrama of a portentous four years has been more than just a headline in The Diamondback. For those not connected to any of these tragedies, it has been a wake-up call of just how lucky we have been and how trivial daily stresses are.

There are things I don’t like about this campus, and I spent much of my time at The Diamondback scrutinizing them in hopes they could improve. I hope to return one day to a campus that doesn’t brush aside its commuter students and doesn’t have to worry about a daily crime alert e-mail; to a city that recognizes it is part of a college, not just close to it; a state that fully realizes the school’s potential; and most important, students finally stripped of their sometimes-deplorable apathy.

But those shortfalls don’t overshadow camping out in Cole Field House to see the men’s basketball team, who that year won a national championship. Or a walk on McKeldin Mall, or a barbecue with friends, or all the great opportunities this ever-improving university has provided. And especially, how such a large community can come together in times of need.

I leave this school with very fond memories and a special place in my heart, and I will be a proud alumnus. I would like to think that while I may be just a name on a list of 4,500 graduates, that at least that list will be remembered as one of the most perseverant, indefatigable and courageous classes ever to come through College Park.