“Hey, my friend, it seems your eyes are troubled. Care to share your time with me? Would you say you’re feeling low, and so a good idea would be to get it off your mind.”
— Dave Matthews Band, “The Best of What’s Around”
Regina Sims was born on the same day 20 years ago in the same New Mexico hospital as Andrew Grooms, who lost his life Sunday after a dormitory at Catawba College caught fire.
Sims, a sophomore at Catawba, attended the same day-care center and schools as Grooms. When they turned 18, they both bought packs of cigarettes and lottery tickets together. Sims remembers she was upset because the cashier only carded Grooms.
Though unrelated, Grooms was like a twin brother, Sims told hundreds of students who packed the main room in the student center Monday night.
“I had 20 years with my twin,” Sims said, softly crying. “That was how we lived life, side by side. He is my brother, and I’ll cherish everything about him for the rest of my life.”
To the music of the Dave Matthews Band, a band Grooms loved, students hugged, wept and held candles Monday night outside the dorm where Grooms lived. They placed bouquets of flowers in the grass where they last saw Grooms, just after other students helped him get away from the burning building.
Grooms died hours later at a Winston-Salem hospital.
Grooms, who had come to Catawba from Roswell, N.M., had traveled to Europe four times and had planned a fifth trip. He always kept in contact with Sims and other friends by phone and e-mail, Sims told other students.
“He traveled all over the world, and every time he came back he had a whole new list of friends. He never let a friend go. ... It seemed no matter how far apart we moved, we came back together.”
Grooms taught sophomore Kelly Geiler how to play the recorder, and she recalled Monday how he constantly played Dave Matthews’ mellow melodies on his computer at college.
“The people here were his family, and he never wanted to leave.”
Prompting chuckles, Geiler told others how Grooms was usually late getting places — even when he had plenty of notice — and didn’t mind emptying his friends’ refrigerators.
“If any of you knew him, you were probably used to him raiding your food supplies.”
Grooms’ roommate, Ryan Wolf, remembers watching “The Simpsons” on TV and sharing Ramen noodles.
“I basically lost my best friend,” Wolf said.
Monday, a badly charred and broken dresser sat outside the Foil House, its cabinets lying in the grass — some still full of clothes. College officials found two shoeboxes of pictures and a high school graduation book in Grooms’ dresser and returned them to his parents before they returned to New Mexico.
The college’s flag hung at half staff in front of the Hedrick administration building.
On a tablecloth in the student center, students signed their names and wrote remarks with markers. “I’m going to Italy for you,” one wrote.
“I plan to see the world,” Sims said, “and everywhere I go, I will take his memory with me.”
Contact Brad A. Hodges at 704-797-4266 or bhodges@salisburypost.com
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