A Talk Delivered at the Memorial of Cynthia K Harris.
After I got the terrible news about the passing of my beloved friend and sister, Cyndi, my brother called me. During that late night conversation, he asked me if I would write something to share at Cyndi’s memorial. Of course, I said yes. And from then until this morning, I’ve been asking Cyndi to send me the right words. How can I describe Cyndi to you so we can recall her completely? How do you describe a ray of light? You can’t see it except that its brightness may cause shadows to be cast by the things that are bathed by it. You can’t see it except if it passes through a leaden crystal and breaks into prisms of color that will dance upon the floor or ceiling. If a ray of light shines at you too directly, it will blind you. In winter times, it can make the snow covered ground sparkle as if covered with jewels. In the summer, it is the warmth upon our skin that makes us want to work in the garden, sun ourselves on the beautiful ocean shores, or take our dog for a walk in the park.
I’ve been asking people about Cyndi over these last few days. What do you remember about her? Tell me a story. Her mother, Jeanne Bugay said “she was all sunshine and happiness.” When I talked to Summer about it, she said, “my mother had a way of finding the bright side of anything.” In the early morning hours, after her death, her son Stuart sent her one final text saying, “You are my world.”
Spending these few days with my brother and Cyndi’s family, my siblings and I have tried to help by picking up around the house, being there to listen to Jim and the kids, and to offer whatever tiny bit of comfort we can in the wake of this unexpected loss. I’m a very practical person and thinking about Jim’s life going forward, I said to him, “she was your bookkeeper, wasn’t she, Jim?” He was quiet for a moment and turned to me saying, “She was my everything.”
Cyndi was a woman of great spirituality, but her faith and practice of it was something she held as sacred and private. I know that her beliefs were a source of great comfort and strength to her through not only the illness she battled but also through carefree times. What I can say about this is that Cyndi believed in working from intention; she believed that with enough faith and sheer will blessings would come to her and they did.
Cyndi did not believe in being passive, as we all learned watching her live with the devastating implications of liver disease. When I think of Cyndi in this battle, I think of the beautiful Goddess Athena on a white steed. Cyndi never seemed sick and she never said anything but that she was feeling great. She never looked anything but lovely. In fact, as the years flew by, she grew lovelier. She became a student of her illness in every way. She befriended and recruited all the doctors, nurses, technicians and personnel at Montefiore and Presbyterian Hospitals and of the Starzl Transplant Center into her army against this brutal disease. How could she know she would be ambushed? We all believed, as Cyndi did, that she was going to win this battle.
In the winter, the earth rolls away from the sun a bit and some of us grow sad and cold. We long for spring and warmer times, but we go on because we know those times will return. Like the sun each morning, each spring we know that Cyndi too will return to us and that one day we will all be reunited in great celebration.
Back home in Massachusetts these past few months, for some reason, I’d taken to watching a television program called “I Survived Death & Beyond.” In this program, survivors relate personal stories wherein they experienced clinical death and returned to the living. Their stories, though differing, share one common theme: that is they each experienced awe when they encountered the indescribable and overwhelming presence of a loving being or form of light. Most of these survivors did not want to return to their physical bodies, as they had never felt so completely loved and at peace. I believe this. I think you do as well. I believe this is the very light that illuminated Cyndi throughout her amazing life. I also believe she was greeted by this light, and by her loved ones who were there to greet her - Sean, Jim’s brother, Bill, our father Stuart, and especially Danna. Cyndi loves all of us - specially her blessed little family Jim, Stu and Sum. But when she transitioned to the other side and was freed from the heavy burden that her earthly body had become, she chose the light and the light chose her. I believe she wants us to know that she is with us, now and always.
Jim and I talked on Thursday, when I first arrived, about how the kids are about the same ages that he and I and Jane and Rick and Bill were when our father died. So, we both felt we understood how sad they are feeling. The loss of my father was like the death of a superhero to me, and I know Sum and Stu feel that way about their mom. As Stu said, “She is his world.” I also remember in the years following my father’s death hearing other people, who perhaps were not as blessed as we were, talk about their parents. I thought to myself, I had more of a father in 19 years than most people have in a lifetime. Well, I want to share with you that Stuart and Summer Harris had abundant blessings in the gift of their mother, even in the very short time that they had her. And little AJ and Nico Ackerman along with their older siblings, Autumn and Dylan, our beloved Sean’s children, had an amazing blessing in their father in a short 6 and 11 years. Cyndi Siegert Harris is form of light, as are Stuart Marvin Harris and Sean Michael Ackerman. I know all of us feel sorrow for Summer and Stu, but in ways it might make more sense to wish that all children could have such an amazing parent.
Cyndi Harris was a fierce lioness when it came to her children. Cyndi and I rarely had a cross word between us unless it came to some misunderstanding about our children. In Cyndi’s view, her children could do no wrong and anyone who hurt them in any way, real or imagined, intended or accidental, would have, pardon the expression, hell to pay. The other night I asked Jim’s friend, Tony Butera, to tell me his Cyndi story. He said, “All I can remember is when I first knew Jim, Cyndi didn’t like me. She knew I was a man about town and was afraid I would be a bad influence on Jim.” One night Cyndi and Tony found themselves alone together - all the tough questions were addressed, that was Cyndi - she didn’t mince words. That night, Cyndi realized that Tony was as devoted to her and her children as he was to Jim and since then Tony developed a strong bond with Cyndi and the children, in addition to Jim.
Over the years, Jim and Cyndi have always shared the stories of their travels and adventures together. Among them were stories about their trips to New Orleans for New Year’s Eve to spend time with Cyndi’s best girl-friend, Karen, and her husband, Pete. The two couples grew incredibly close, and Pete, who was unable to be here today, often demonstrated his outrageous sense of humor and teased Cyndi about everything. Jim told me he called her “liverwurst” but more often he called her by another nickname, “In Broad Daylight” you can try to get the details of the reason behind that name from my brother. It was when Jim shared that nickname with me when I began to see the pattern of what it was that Cyndi gave to others - there again was light. This is what Cyndi was guiding me to share today.
It was Jeanne Bugay, Cyndi’s mother, who told me that Cyndi was a ray of sunshine. She also told me in her reckoning with this terrible loss, that none of us can understand what it is like to lose a child. My grandmother told me the same thing after my father’s death, “You can’t imagine the pain of bringing a child into this world and watching him leave it.” No, we cannot imagine this. This is each parent’s worst nightmare. All of our love and support goes to Jean Bugay and Dan Siegert at their unspeakable loss, now and going forward.
And more mirrors than this exist between Jim and Cyndi’s families as Cyndi is the older sister of her three brothers, Dusty, Jeffrey and Mick, who shared her birthday. Jim lost his oldest brother a few years back, our brother Bill, who was our guide through so many trials over the years, as I know Cyndi was to her brothers. They too will need our love and compassion over the coming months and years, as they face the empty space left by their beloved sister. I know Cyndi was a great support and comfort to Jim when he lost his brother, as she was to my sister Jane, staying by her side, as together they made arrangements for the burial of my mother.
Cyndi Harris worked with intention and made magic. You were blessed if you got to sit at her dinner table, as she could scrape up a feast with slim pickings from her pantry. In her kitchen, there are stacks and rows of every spice you can imagine. As a seamstress, Cyndi makes me think of the magical fairy godmother in Cinderella with her enchanted wand. Bing! A Halloween costume for Summer. Abracadabra some beautiful drapes for the dining room! Poof! Your blue jeans are hemmed. Ashley, Danny, Maggie, Riley, Jeffrey, and Max, I want you to know that your aunt was something of an alchemist. As I do all of the nieces and nephews on Jim’s side of the family. If you had a sore on your finger, she could make the perfect tincture to heal it. If your heart was broken, she would slip you a piece of rose quartz to heal it. I’m sorry she won’t be here for you, kids, as you face these things in your life. But be heartened: you have an angel of light, who will always be watching over you. Don’t ever doubt it. Cyndi planted a lemon seed and grew a lemon tree that bore fruit. Who does that? That, my friends and family is magic.
How can you see a ray of light? As I said, you can see it in the beautiful prisms that break through a crystal hanging in a sunny window. You can feel its warmth when you step from the shade into the light. I could keep you here all afternoon describing the ways in which Cyndi manifest light in her life, and how she gravitated toward the light, from her love of the sunny beaches of the eastern shore to the yellow buds of roses or ranunculus. Yet, one of the things Cyndi told Jim is that she really didn’t want to be in a funeral home - that’s why we have only gathered here today. Summer told me, “Aunt Meg, she didn’t want us to cry, she wanted us to celebrate.”
And so, after we honor this sister, this wife, this mother, this daughter, this friend, here and with solemnity, let us leave here together and go to Cyndi’s home let it be you who tell Stuart and Summer and Jim your stories of the sunlight that is Cyndi Harris.
Let us go and celebrate her life. Let us do so in with joy and “in broad daylight.”
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