Memorial Service Speech - December 16, 2009 One cannot do justice to describe a life as full as Christine’s with but a few words, but words is all we have. I am Christine’s brother Chuck. Christine’s life was much like the flowers she so beautifully captured in her art: one of steady growth and evolving beauty. She grew up as the youngest and only daughter in our family home in Sunnyvale, California. Michael and I were her big brothers. We had an intact and functional family which made it possible for the three of us to grow up healthy and to get a decent education. Following high school, when Christine left for college at UC Santa Barbara, she was so young, but eager to take part in the world around her, to explore the opportunities that life presented, and year by year, to find, explore and develop her many talents. That was the spirit she carried throughout her life. In the early 1970s, she arrived her in Rochester with little more than a degree in anthropology and her intrepid spirit. To keep financially afloat, she began working jobs such as waitress, clerk at J.C. Penny’s, and in a camera shop. Soon, she began making and developing the many friendships that helped guide her into the vivacious, multi-talented, passionate person we came to know and love. While working, Christine continued here education and earned a masters degree in public administration at SUNY Brockport. This was while serving as an administrator at Strong Memorial Hospital, now Rochester University Medical Center. She then went on to obtain another masters degree in instructional technology at RIT, started a business consulting firm to advise companies in how to better communicate and design business systems and communication tools. From this, she authored books on both design and information sharing and developed a gorgeous website, luminguild.com. Her early work in the camera store was a perfect start to her interest in photography. As we know, she became a fantastic nature photographer. With friends interested in preserving the environment, her passion for protecting the wetlands blossomed, an interest she captured magnificently in her photographs, maps, calendars and books. Some of those wonderful images we see tonight. They were works of art. Again, with help from her friends, she developed as a accomplished singer and musician. She performed songs in Spanish, Portuguese; she loved jazz, the blues, and songs of humor. She sang with the Unitarian Church Choir and Madrigalia, both with us tonight, and we fondly remember vacations and family gatherings where she would sing for us. She did not suffer stage fright. She was fearless. To our immediate family, Christine was the glue who kept us closer together. We were connected to her by almost daily emails on diverse topics, environmental, political and personal. Those contacts made it seem like we were engaged in an almost daily dialogue with her. Christine was the one who maintained the contacts with our extended family -- the many cousins, aunts and uncles who are scattered about the country. She was the one who, after a family vacation to Spain, maintained connections with our relatives there. She even made a return trip by herself to Spain and from that trip came her book, Memorias, a meditation on her Spanish roots. With my 91 year-old father, she worked on painting and photography projects, one of which resulted in the 2008 production of her Thanatopsis calendar. It was her suggestion that he become involved with her in that and other projects, and it provided him a wonderful outlet for his own talent and the joy of working together with his daughter. Christine defined herself in her Watershed book as a dog lover, singer, photographer, book artist, information and instructional designer, adjunct professor at RIT and author. To that list may be added ardent defender of the wetlands, the trails, and parks. In that defense, she was a light revealing to those who would look, the land’s hidden beauty and the need for its preservation. When we were last here in September, she delighted in taking us to her favorite parks. While on the trails, she often stopped to point out the tiny flowers or invasive weeds of which none of us, save her, knew the names. Many of these seemingly insignificant flowers and weeds, she illuminated in her photographs as beautiful works of nature. Christine, our hearts ache for you. We love and deeply miss you. We will never forget your many talents and achievements of which we were so proud. Most of all, we were proud that you were such a wonderful human being. I think Christine’s last message to us tonight would be this: Daily treasure the living, your loved ones and friends, and this good earth. Charles Sevilla |
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Charles Sevilla Speech |