Celebrating the Life of Laura Baudo Sillerman

Celebrating the life of

Laura Baudo Sillerman May 15, 2025

Welcome As Laura wished, we have gathered her friends and family here at Harlem Academy to celebrate a life well-lived.

Since the school’s founding, Laura has advanced our work in countless ways and quietly inspired others to do the same. Her generosity offered financial stability through early, uncertain days, and her leadership was instrumental in making our beautiful campus a reality.

As a trustee, Laura set the standard – always listening carefully, sharing wisdom with humility, and keeping the mission at the heart of every strategic decision.

In May 2024, The Poets Terrace was dedicated in honor of the Sillerman family and its transformational impact on Harlem Academy.

Laura played a pivotal role in establishing this school as a home for young poets to find their voices, and the Terrace now stands as a joyful, inspiring space to celebrate the vibrancy of our program. The triple-loop infinity symbol rendered into the dedication plaque was the only thing Laura would accept as a subtle but powerful recognition for the way Laura, Bob, and Mackinley’s drive and spirit are woven into the foundation of our school and will carry forward in support of generations to come.

Today, we celebrate all things Laura: music, pizza, poetry, good beer, and cocktails. Please join us for a brief program at 6:45 p.m. And, thank you for being here to honor Laura’s extraordinary spirit.

A Loving Remembrance:

Laura Baudo Sillerman 1947 - 2024 Laura will long be remembered for her service and counsel to a wide array of humanitarian, education and arts organizations, including PEN America, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y. An alum and a trustee of Marietta College in Ohio, she was key to critical fundraising efforts there and championed the construction of the Dyson Baudo Recreation Center and Legacy Library; the Sillerman Commons on campus is named in her honor. With her husband Robert, she was co-founder of the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at Brandeis University.

She was also president of The Tomorrow Foundation, a New York City-based charitable foundation, and served on the board of Long Island University’s Southampton campus, where she was instrumental in bringing both the Southampton Writers Conference and The Southampton Review to national prominence. During summer conferences at the school, she was a legendary host to a vast community of writers, treating all - renowned authors and unknowns alike - with the same genuine interest and care. And she was the creative spark behind the summer All For The Sea concerts to benefit the college’s Marine Science Program, featuring acts such as Paul Simon, Tina Turner, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

In 2012, she joined the board of Harlem Academy, an independent K-8 school for promising low-income students, helping to facilitate the creation of a visiting poets program in partnership with the Poetry Society of America. In 2013, she established the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, helping to expand the scope of publishing in African poetry.

She was also an accomplished poet, columnist, and co-author, with Bruce Morrow, of “Cousin Brucie: My Life in Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio” (William Morrow, 1982). She wrote with such elegance, depth and insight that a simple email from her could be something of a literary event, calling upon the recipient to muster their inner poet in response.

It wasn’t a challenge or a test, it was simply an example that made people want to rise to the best that was in them. That was her effect on people, and she was always at the ready to help them do that. In the end, that may be her greatest legacy of all.

Speakers Abby Flynn Paulson was among those with the outrageous good fortune of having had Laura in her life from birth. As one of the ‘kids’ from Southampton, Abby was blessed to know Laura as a true matriarch to our tribe, a selfless and generous friend, and a constant source of support, inspiration and unconditional love.

Billy Collins is a recently retired Distinguished Professor at Lehman College (CUNY). He’s been part of the Southampton Writers Conference for many years and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Robert Reevess Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Stony Brook University and guided the development and growth of the many academic, advanced training, publishing and community programs recently gathered within the newly founded Lichtenstein Center. Two nationally prominent programs within the Center, The Southampton Review and the Southampton Writers Conference, are the direct result of Reeves’ partnership with Laura Sillerman.

Patricia McCormick is the author of several young adult books and was a proud member of the Log Cabin Women, a writers’ group that included Melissa Bank, Laura Stein, Magdalene Brandeis, and Laura Sillerman.

Vinny Dotoli is the founder and head of school of Harlem Academy. He and Laura had their first meeting in a church basement before the school had opened, and she played a critical role in the parallel growth of his leadership and the school itself.

Abby Flynn Paulson Good evening…It is a tremendous honor for me to welcome you all tonight…

An enormous thank you to Harlem Academy for bringing us together in this wonderful place; a place so rich with promise, so restorative in its optimism; a place to which Laura devoted herself and invigorated the way she did so many things, so many people, dreams, gardens, and as probably everyone here can attest, all the pitchers of margaritas.

Unlike the brilliant individuals we’ll be hearing from momentarily, I am a regular person…a regular person with the exceptional fortune of having known the power of Laura’s love.

As I look around tonight, I marvel at the scale to which she gave this magnificent gift. The reach of that love extending to each of us here and far beyond, her boundless generosity rippling out into the world.

And although generosity in the traditional sense of the word is something she obviously personified, I believe the power of Laura’s love was rooted in her seemingly infinite emotional generosity: her generosity of presence, of perception, of attention. Her energetic generosity, the balm of compassion and solidarity she brought to every hardship; the graceful yet authoritative way she induced merriment and lavished permissions onto our most decadent dreams.

Certainly there is no exhaustive list of the companionships, kindred spirits, sisterhoods, connections and confidantes Laura knew: her cherished cousin Jerrilyn, whose family she adored; the Marietta college friends with whom she remained so close; her Manhattan ‘girl gang’; the altruistic and dedicated peers she held dear from the myriad committees and boards on which she served; the trusted, constant buoy that was her writing group; the veritable anthology of poets and authors with whom she shared her talents and passions; the extended family of Southampton townies she embraced as her own…

Bob…‘Seems’ as Laura called him, and the stratospheric ferris wheel of his victories and losses – or maybe he would prefer for me to call them strategic descents – and that spectacular comet of a girl who blazed in and out of this world with such brilliant ferocity, Mackinley Jo. As was her custom, Laura left us wanting more. She slipped off over the dune while we were dancing barefoot in the sand, buzzing with the joy she’d magicked into us, never imagining we’d have to carry on in a place where she was not. Lucky for us, place and time are meaningless in the presence of love like ours. As we celebrate her this evening, let us assume that she is listening. Let us believe that she is here.

Not long ago Laura closed an email she sent me with a poem by Raymond Carver entitled Late Fragment. It goes like this: And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

Laura, we have endless words we’d say to you and of you forever more, but rest assured that at the top of the list is ‘beloved.’

Beloved on the earth, Beloved here this night, Beloved wherever you may be.

It is now my great privilege to introduce someone whose mind and heart were an inspiration and an oasis for Laura.

A dearest friend to her, a brilliant voice, and a luminous presence in her life, the incomparable poet amongst poets, Billy Collins…

Vinny Dotoli Thanks Abby, Billy, Patty, and Bob. I’m Vinny Dotoli, the founding head here at Harlem Academy, and want to close with a couple thoughts The first is to add a bit of context to why we’re gathered here, in an elementary school library to celebrate the life of someone who threw the best parties. I mean - a tiny stage, nowhere to sit, and 145th street during rush hour is not exactly convenient for most folks.

It's because Laura spent the last 20 years making Harlem Academy the most transformational school it could be - and bringing this building to reality. She wanted to ensure it was and remains a special place where bright, motivated kids from all backgrounds can come to learn and grow. Hopefully you saw a bit of that on the way in and even consider ways to engage on your own.

Over the four years since we opened the building, Laura and I discussed a few ideas for how we could honor her impact… But, she always pushed off the decision, wanting to somehow find a way to center what was accomplished over the who or how of the accomplishment. Then one evening last year, after she had joined me and a bunch of middle school parents for a simple but powerful poetry reading, we sat at a table in the back of this room and struck on a plan.

The beautiful space outside our library will always be known as The Poets Terrace.

You can look to the plaque affixed to the school to see a triple-loop infinity symbol.

She chose this symbol for its own poetry, the conjuring of mathematicians, ancient philosophers, the universe, and most powerfully for the way our impact on each other and the world ripples through space and time. The triple loop represents not just Laura, but also Bob and Mackinley, whose drive and spirit were always woven into our work together.

During our second hour, I hope you spend time on the terrace. It’s a wonderful place to remember Laura. Plus, you can read poems written by our students over the years intermixed with pieces written or shared by some of you and Laura’s other friends in celebration of her life.

I hope you also step back into the main section of the school to visit our Kindergarten classroom, where there’s a slide show of the photos you all sent capturing memories with Laura through the years. There’s even a station where you can voice record a quick story that will be shared along with the photos and poems in the next few weeks…

Finally, in thinking of Laura, I’m reminded of what my wife Traci said when we first heard she had died. “I am so sorry for the hole you must be feeling - that loss of a voice that heard you, and spoke with you, in a way that was different from any other…”

In the lead up to this celebration, it’s been so clear how many folks are wrestling with that same kind of hole. It’s something we just have to acknowledge and sit with, knowing we can’t bring her back, and we sure as hell can’t replace her. However, we can hold the collective responsibility to emulate the powerful ways she connected with each of us… I think Laura would like that.

Let's finish with a quiet pause to reflect and breathe in the memories that bring smiles to our faces and that we want to carry forward. Then, as we have a toast and the music kicks back in with our wonderful steel drummer (a Laura request) playing a song dear to her heart (One Love), we can share more memories and continue the celebration … A moment of silence to Laura. And a toast to our friend.

Laura Baudo Sillerman Scholarship Fund Contributors The Laura Baudo Sillerman Scholarship Fund honors the immeasurable difference Laura has made at Harlem Academy.

Since the school’s founding, Laura has been dedicated to the strongest realization of the mission, making the school a philanthropic priority and continuously helping to fulfill the needs of students.

Ronald and Josephine Allen

Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Kruger

Bijan Amini

Georgeanne Kumar

Anonymous

Kelly Levy

Warren Benjamin

Ann Maloney

Scott Campbell

Karyn and Bruce McGowin

Jay Harris and Marcia Cohen

Janet Muir

Eve and Simon Colin Foundation

David B. Peterson

Ronald Delsener

Alice Quinn

Todd Dimston

Jane Rascoff

Rose Dios

Linda Rothschild

Roxanne Donovan

Colleen Caslin Schmit

Traci Schwinn and Vinny Dotoli

Faith Hampton Childs and Harris Schrank

Dyson Foundation

Ms. Beverly E. Schwartz

Jane and Victor Finalborgo

Edward Simon

Alice Flynn

Silda Wall Spitzer

Carol Gilbert

Katie Steinbach

Melinda Gould

Chef Bobo Surles

Lucia and David Greenhouse

Sandra Theunick

Linda T. Haesche

Lizabeth B. Weaver

Jeremy Raccio and Sadia Halim

Catherine D. Wood

Valarie Amanda Hing

Patty Young

Karen Huebner Micheline and Christopher Jedrey Mrs. Judy Katz Andrew Kreig List in formation

Laura Baudo Sillerman Scholarship Fund Your generosity drives our mission. harlemacademy.org/laura-baudo-sillerman-scholarship-fund

Poems and Other Words for Laura and from Laura These words were submitted by Laura’s dearest friends and family members. You will see original works, poems that remind us of Laura, fond memories and favorite things, and Laura’s own poignant words of encouragement.

SUBMITTED BY BIJAN AMINI & SILDA WALL SPITZER:

High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never “Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job or a limb or a loved one, a graduation, bringing a new baby home: it’s impossible to think at first how this all will be possible. Eventually, what moves it all forward is the subterranean ebb and flow of being alive among the living.

In my own worst seasons I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window.

And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon.

Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again.

It’s not such a wide gulf to cross, then, from survival to poetry. We hold fast to the old passions of endurance that buckle and crack beneath us, dovetailed, tight as a good wooden boat to carry us onward, And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another-that is surely the basic instinct. Baser even than hate, the thing with teeth, which can be stilled with a tone of voice or stunned by beauty. If the whole world of the living has to turn on a single point of remaining alive, that pointed endurance is the poetry of hope. The thing with feathers.

What a stroke of luck. What a singular brute feat of outrageous fortune: to be born to citizenship in the Animal Kingdom. We love and we lose, go back up to the start and do it right over again. For every forebrain solemnly cataloging the facts of a harsh landscape, there’s a rush of intuition behind it crying out: High tide: Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.”

- Barbara Kingsolver

SUBMITTED BY JANET BEEHAN:

Everything Falls Away There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change.

-William Stafford Sooner or later, everything falls away.

You, the work you’ve done, your successes, large and small, your failures, too. Those moments when you were light, alongside the times you became one with the night.

The friends, the people you loved who loved you, those who might have wished you ill, none of this is forever. All of it is soon to go, or going, or long gone.

Everything falls away, except the thread you’ve followed, unknowing, all along.

The thread that strings together all you’ve been and done, the thread you didn’t know you were tracking until, toward the end, you see that the tread is what stays as everything else falls away.

Follow that thread as far as you can and you’ll find that it does not end, but weaves into the unimaginable vastness of life. Your life never was the solo turn it seemed to be.

It was always part of the great weave of nature and humanity, an immensity we come to know only as we follow our own small threads to the place where they merge with the boundless whole.

Each of our threads runs its course, then joins in life together. This magnificent tapestry – this masterpiece in which we live forever.

-Parker J. Palmer

SUBMITTED BY SCOTT CAMPBELL:

It is not the ones who throw roses On your grave Who realize your life didn’t die It’s the ones You rode with on the roller coaster, Who you made love with, It’s the children who learned from you To laugh exactly the way you do...

They are where Your life went.

- Joseph Pintauro

SUBMITTED BY JANE FINALBORGO:

Instructions on Not Giving Up More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

-Ada Limón

SUBMITTED BY BERNICE FISCHMAN:

In September of 1964 four young women arrived at Marietta College, in Marietta Ohio with their belongings carefully packed in enormous steamer trunks: Laura, Sharon, Patty and me. We spent a great deal of time baring our souls in dusty back stairwells. We recognized in each other something to be explored, ideas to be considered, who to love, what we could be, naïve and wise. We shared ideas and matters of the heart. We have been best friends since then. There is so much to say about Laura, but every time I start thinking about what to say three words reverberate: SHE IS GONE. We all know that Laura was brilliant, funny, kind, compassionate, generous, introspective and a philanthropist of renown. She loved helping Harlem Academy. She helped poets and writers. She rarely complained about anything, and I know there were many things she could have complained about – too many details, too many houses, too many parties when I know in my heart that she would have preferred a cozy cottage by the sea and books. She nourished my heart and repeatedly reminded me of my strengths and never mentioned my weaknesses. She was a very important part of my life, and her sorrows broke my heart. All I can say is that she is one of the best people I have ever known and I miss her terribly.

There are Stars There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct.

There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world even though they are no longer among the living.

These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.

- Hannah Senesh

SUBMITTED BY CHELSEA FISCHMAN:

When I was going through a tough time about 12 years ago, Laura wrote in an email “We will race the sun until we are in its light again” and it has stuck with me ever since. I’ve often contemplated getting it tattooed somewhere.

Laura always loved her IPAs! Especially Lunch IPA from Maine Beer Company.

I fondly remember the time she helped me flirt with a cute waiter at Quatorze Bis on E. 82nd St. She was always down to have a bit of fun!

And she was the one who gifted me a copy of Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler many years ago. Laura was the reason I started working in restaurants at age 19, and reading that book made me reminisce about the insanely fun (and terrible) times I had in my 20s working in bars and restaurants in NYC.

SUBMITTED BY ALICE FLYNN:

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa Arching under the night sky inky with black expansiveness, we point to the planets we know, we pin quick wishes on stars. From earth, we read the sky as if it is an unerring book of the universe, expert and evident.

Still, there are mysteries below our sky: the whale song, the songbird singing its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.

We are creatures of constant awe, curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom, at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.

And it is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of space, but the offering of water, each drop of rain, each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.

O second moon, we, too, are made of water, of vast and beckoning seas.

We, too, are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, of a need to call out through the dark.

-Ada Limón

SUBMITTED BY NICOLE GAY:

Lovely Laura Lovely, and never lost to us you are Laura Immeasurable gratitude we hold for your touch in our lives, today, then and forever -Nicole Gay Thank you for the comforting warmth of your embrace, the strength of your deeds, The love given to us in various times of need.

Although in the physical, we are now set apart No words can fully describe the solemn feelings now in our hearts So lovely and free, to us you will always be!

We honor your life then, now and for all eternity.

SUBMITTED BY CAROL GILBERT:

The Laura Factor If you know Laura Baudo Sillerman, you have experienced The Laura Factor.

As we know, she knows a lot about a lot.

And she remembers everything—the facts, their significance, to whom they matter, and why.

When we are playing one of the parlor games, of which she is so fond, we do well to consider The Laura Factor.

Playing charades? You want The Laura Factor on your team. If she’s not on your team, it’s important to note that the Laura Factor is on the other team.

Doing the crossword? The Laura Factor will get it done.

When driving in two cars, choose the one that has The Laura Factor.

Better yet, let The Factor drive.

The Laura Factor is portable and telepathic.

She herself need not be present to be helpful.

When I’m at a crossroads, on the horns of a dilemma, dithering, procrastinating, fulminating, I think, “What would Laura do?” and I factor it in.

The Factor was cultivated at Marietta College, and now has influence world-wide.

Let us celebrate The Factor, which is in this very room, at this very moment.

Raise your glass, and may the Factor be with you.

- Carol Gilbert

SUBMITTED BY LUCIA GREENHOUSE:

There are too many to list. Laura was the consummate curator. One thing she did not like though, are Paperwhite Narcissus (flowers.) The smell. I always smile— and forever will—when I encounter them.

SUBMITTED BY MARTHA HAND:

The positive impact Laura had on others can’t be described in simplistic terms--it was so much deeper! Yet I think Laura enjoyed simplicity, so my sentiments today will be just that.

These words capture for me a small part of the boundless grace, generosity, aweinspiring strength of character and beautiful spirit of Laura: Some people come into our lives and quickly go.

Some people move our souls to dance.

They awaken us to a new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom.

Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon.

They stay in our lives for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever, the same.

—Flavia Weedn So it is with Laura to all those who knew her. Rest peacefully, dear friend. You are missed and your cherished memory is with us always.

SUBMITTED BY KARL KIRCHWEY:

An Estate The swimming pool appears to lack one edge.

Water strains gently at its own meniscus and overflows the blue slate to allege to the god of boundaries that there are no boundaries.

The bathhouse is a fane of Alaskan cedar, a virgin forest marked out and consumed, all for the delight of a Japanese master, and without the use of a single nail.

A Brahms quintet leaks from the undergrowth around each supine body and beaded drink.

She leads us through a blushing sandstone labyrinth, flanking inducements of the sybaritic to stoop gracefully where a cliff swallow lies motionless, small stunned voluptuary, in noon’s thin margin of glass and shadow; and though she leaves for Anguilla on Tuesday, pelagic traveler, to her alone (not to a guest whom privilege makes passive) itfalls to cup that body’s buff and cinnamon and raise it to us, ruffled and alive. i.m. Laura Baudo Sillerman (1947-2024) -Karl Kirchwey

SUBMITTED BY LISA LEBOWITZ KISS:

Laura’s gift of bringing the most interesting, soulful, and loving people together is not lost on anyone in attendance here. We used to have long talks about whether we were old or young souls, over cocktails (she turned me onto side cars, which she made very strong!) Of course Laura was an OLD SOUL. Not just in how generous, honest, empathic & loving she was to everyone, but in the epic swings Laura encountered in her life with such strength and grace. A rare soul indeed, there is no way anyone could have lived that life with the tenderness and grace she did without this being one of many rounds of being here. How lucky we all are to have known & loved her. I still speak to you Laura on many nights as I fall asleep. I thank you for all the soulful conversations and letters we shared over the past 34 years. My dearest wish is that you are seeing your dearest loves again and are at peace wherever that may be. Sending all my love to you now and forever. xxxooo L

SUBMITTED BY JAN KUMAR:

In Lieu of Flowers Although I love flowers very much, I won’t see them when I’m gone. So in lieu of flowers: Buy a book of poetry written by someone still alive, sit outside with a cup of tea, a glass of wine, and read it out loud, by yourself or to someone, or silently.

Spend some time with a single flower. A rose maybe. Smell it, touch the petals.

Really look at it.

Drink a nice bottle of wine with someone you love.

Or, Champagne. And think of what John Maynard Keynes said, “My only regret in life is that I did not drink more Champagne.” Or what Dom Perignon said when he first tasted the stuff: “Come quickly! I am tasting stars!”

Take out a paint set and lay down some colours.

Watch birds. Common sparrows are fine. Pigeons, too. Geese are nice. Robins.

In lieu of flowers, walk in the trees and watch the light fall into it. Eat an apple, a really nice big one. I hope it’s crisp.

Have a long soak in the bathtub with candles, maybe some rose petals.

Sit on the front stoop and watch the clouds. Have a dish of strawberry ice cream in my name.

If it’s winter, have a cup of hot chocolate outside for me. If it’s summer, a big glass of ice water.

If it’s autumn, collect some leaves and press them in a book you love. I’d like that.

Sit and look out a window and write down what you see. Write some other things down.

In lieu of flowers, I would wish for you to flower.

I would wish for you to blossom, to open, to be beautiful.

-Shawna Lemay SUBMITTED BY: EARLE MAIMAN

Friendship Oh, the comfort— the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person— having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

- Dinah Maria Craik (1826-87)

SUBMITTED BY CAROL MUSKE-DUKES:

Laura I remember her poem called “The Nature of Wealth”, ending With a child holding fast to her Grandfather’s trembling hand.

I sat next to her in the helicopter Rising over Manhattan. Sat next to her On the subway, next to her at the theater The night her child was lost forever. She Never stopped mourning but still entered Rooms in polite distraction, her expression Half-intent on dialogues that often ended in Pleas for help. She refused the maudlin, She waited for each power beam of the Lighthouse, like Mrs. Ramsay, to illuminate, As she wrote to me, at The End, “I am, at long last, On speaking terms with uncertainty. Miracles do happen.”

Bravery was her uncertain miracle. I remember Her once, her face flushed at the end of our long windy Beach walk, as her big dog Sandy came galloping up “He rockets through the electric fence just to get to Us” she laughed. “He’s willing to take the hit to be free.”

She was free, taking the hit, she didn’t hesitate in the Lighthouse power beam. In clarity’s pain, she kept coming.

- Carol Muske-Dukes I loved Laura, as so many of us did. I knew her through spectacular ascendancy and tragic downturn but her dignity and compassion never left her, even at her darkest. Her soul, her spirit survives here at Harlem Academy.

SUBMITTED BY JERRILYN PETITO:

Laura was born in Paterson, NJ surrounded by her loving parents, doting grandparents, adoring aunts, uncles and cousins. She was our beacon of light and today, as we deal with her loss, her wisdom, generosity, courage and love continue to guide us.

SUBMITTED BY MARK PETITO:

Laura loved a good IPA. Specifically Sip of Sunshine

Silent hope hiding deep in the recesses of the soul, waiting in the wings for the world to turn, not afraid to give and take from life as a whole, standing aside knowing there is something to learn.

Waiting in the wings for the world to turn, I patiently stare at the people flowing by.

Standing aside knowing there is something to learn, counting on the truth of the inevitable reply.

I patiently stare at the people flowing by, not afraid to give and take from life as a whole, counting on the truth of the inevitable reply (silent hope hiding deep in the recesses of the soul).

- Mackinley Sillerman (written in 2008)

SUBMITTED BY SHARON ROBERTS

From Poem 133: The Summer Day "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

-Mary Oliver

Why We Must Struggle If we have not struggled as hard as we can at our strongest how will we sense the shape of our losses or know what sustains us longest or name what change costs us saying how strange it is that one sector of the self can step in for another in trouble how loss activates a latent double how we can feed as upon nectar upon need?

-Kay Ryan

SUBMITTED BY SIOBHAN ROCHE:

Laura was the most wonderful keeper of traditions and had this magical ability to make everyday things feel special. There was always an element of ceremony with every detail and accoutrement carefully thought of. At Thanksgiving, it was the corn soufflé and round table ask of what we’re grateful for, the Friday pizza night with Nick in his personalized chef coat or post Turkey poker complete with Big Joe’s bucket hat and “follow the queen”. If someone mentioned a hankering for crabs, up from Maryland they would come with mallets, newspaper, bibs and IPAs. These seemingly little things showed me how much she cared for those around her and how loved and connected we all felt under her watch. Her commitment to keep traditions (and make new ones along the way) is one of Laura’s many amazing qualities I hope to continue in her memory.

SUBMITTED BY SCOTT STEBBINS:

A Note from Laura Dear, dear Scott, Despite the long preparation and even with the presence of blessed relief, you so deserve the condolences that come with knowing you were a singular companion to your mother as she patiently endured her path to moving on.

These past months must look like a fever dream-- the sameness, the conversations, the quotidian tasks and devotions. They look like luck, too, Scott. A cementing of ancestry and place, and a perfect rebirth into your own life.

There seems to be much mystery in how she could have stayed so long after December and how she could have come so close to her 95th without interfering with your June 14 departure. Of course there is. Such love as you manifested brings much mystery with it.

I hope you have enormous peace on this day and are visited by the joy of knowing you embodied a son’s feelings of duty and undeniable connection.

I hope if there is any grief it is easily processed and set aside. Above all, I hope you know you were that rarest of all human experiences -- perfect, and can take that knowledge into the glorious imperfect days, months, and years to come.

With such love, Laura

SUBMITTED BY CATHERINE WOODARD:

Blessings the Boat (at St. Mary’s) may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that - Lucille Clifton (1936 - 2010)

Thank you We extend a deep appreciation to Alice Flynn, Bernice Fischman, Jane Finalborgo, Sharon Roberts, and Todd Dimston who gave their time and effort to ensure today’s celebration honored Laura in the best possible way.

Songs for Laura Bridge Over Troubled Water Simon & Garfunkel

Harvest Moon Neil Young

Having a Party Lee “Scratch” Perry

Il Cielo In Una Stanza Mina

Imagine John Lennon

In My Life The Beatles

Oh When The Saints Go Marching In Louis Armstrong

One Love Bob Marley & The Wailers

Ripple Grateful Dead

Sweet Blindness The 5thDimension

Urge for Going Tom Rush