Parents of Yale grad killed in Cape crash open up about loss

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WHDH) -- The parents of a Yale student whose life was cut short by a tragic accident opened up Wednesday about how they're moving forward -- and about how their daughter is still inspiring so many people.

Marina Keegan was already an activist, a journalist, and even a playwright, but a week after graduating, she and her boyfriend were on their way to see her family on the Cape when they got into an accident.

Keegan was killed.

“I was waiting for her -- she never arrived,” Kevin Keegan, Marina’s father, said.

Keegan’s family says it wasn't until later that they realized words the young woman had written were giving hope to so many. A recent article called "The Opposite of Loneliness" was about her impending graduation.

That piece has now been forwarded and reposted nearly a million times.

Marina's dad says he holds on to the one moment of gratitude amid his grief: graduation day, just a week before his daughter died.

"I was able to -- on a street corner in New Haven, tell my daughter I was so proud her -- that she graduated at the top of her class at one of the finest universities in the world and how much I loved her," Kevin Keegan said.

Keegan's boyfriend was driving the car at the time of the accident. Her parents say they forgive him and that they know their daughter loved him very much.