Hello, I’m Kittie Simmons, Tina's roommate from West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, WV. I was invited to participate in this celebration service as Tina’s longest friend. I think Stephanie was being kind, when what she really meant was “Oldest” friend. Those of us lucky enough to live into our 70s and 80s are often someone’s “oldest” friend, in both senses of the word.

Tina was so proud to be in the first graduating class from South Carroll High School. She told me how the class got to choose their school colors, their mascot, name the yearbook, set the precedent for celebrations like graduation and prom, and determine how school rituals and ceremonies would be conducted. I’m sure Stephanie and Charlie have found her yearbook among her valued books. Next, she was off to college at West Virginia Wesleyan College, one of about 1400 students enrolled there.

The student housing office at Wesleyan was pretty smug about their ability to match up compatible roommates. But... Read more when Tina and I were chosen as roommates, the housing office won another match. We were an instant success, me as the oldest of three and the only daughter, the only one in my family to attend college, from a small town on the outskirts of Charleston, WV; and Tina, in the middle of five from a family of college students from Mt. Airy Maryland - a much more rural place in 1968. I always thought it was interesting that I ended up in Maryland, geographically closer to her family than she would ever be again. We spent the entire four years together, up until the semester she had to do her student teaching, forming a friendship that lasted over 50 years.

Can you remember Tina’s laugh? She had a wonderful laugh! One time she got the last laugh was April Fool’s Day our first year. We lived in a suite with a bathroom between two student rooms. She got up early and put vaseline on the bathroom door knobs and shaving cream on the toilet seat. There was something else with the mirror, but I have forgotten the details. Later that day when I was out of the room, she coiled up my mattress and spring-loaded it into my closet. Then she watched me open the closet door and collapsed in laughter as my mattress literally leaped out of the closet.

1968-1972 were interesting years to be at Wesleyan. The school, as you might have guessed, was loosely affiliated with the Methodist church and was the largest sanctuary in WV, so the annual conference of the UMC was held here every summer. You may recall that the VietNam war was in full swing during those years, and student protests were occurring across the nation, some at Wesleyan. When we started our freshman year, all the female dorms were closed with a 10:00 curfew weeknights; men were only permitted in the buildings on Sunday afternoons in the house parlor with the house mother present as chaperone. We wore beanies for the first several weeks and were subject to being stopped by an upper class student and required to recite the school song. Sunday midday dinner was dress-up, and served family style. We actually had a lights-out curfew at 11 pm and the RAs would make the rounds to be sure we were all in bed - many of us immediately got up to study by flashlight after they left. Every Tuesday morning at 10, the entire campus reported to the chapel for a service. We had to sign in on attendance sheets. By our senior year, all that had changed - rather dramatically for four short years. No more mandatory chapel, no formal Sunday dinner, men allowed in the dorms until midnight. A more relaxed dress code. It was definitely the 70s at Wesleyan!

Over the years, our families became closer as she made trips home with Charlie and Stephanie and my husband and I took our kids out to Mt. Airy to play with them and have a family meal with the Bollers. One time, when my son John was about 2, Mr. & Mrs Boller called us and told us we just had to come out that evening because a neighbor’s night blooming cereus was going to bloom, So, we headed an hour west to see such an important event and John was up pretty late that night. When Mr. Boller fell off the ladder while working on his radio tower and was seriously injured, I took the kids to see him at his U Md Rehab facility because Ms. Julia couldn’t drive in during the week. Our families became entangled, in a very good way.

Tina was my go-to resource for books. She always had a recommendation ready for a good read, or for a new book tip for my granddaughter. She must have been such a good teacher and I’m sure her students and parents loved her.

The last time I saw Tina, she came home to Melissa and Brian’s house and we ( my husband Glenn and I - he thinks he is an honorary alum from WVWC) picked her up there to drive back to Wesleyan for our 50th graduation anniversary in 2022 and to be inducted into the Emeritus Club. We drove the 5 hours down and 5 hours back talking and laughing all the way. Tina made scones for a car snack and we each had one. We took photos of a rainbow in Buckhannon when we stopped for gas. Then photos of a glorious sunset at our hotel. We took a campus tour and stood together for a photo in the lobby of our first dorm. We attended a banquet in a tent on campus (due to COVID restrictions) in a really cold drizzle. We were both upset that our names had been left off of the program booklet - the alumni office apparently was unable to merge the online registrations with the mail-in registrations. But we consoled ourselves with our lapel pins, dinner, and the good company of former classmates. The weather was pretty bad and we decided the next morning to just drive home since it was pouring and we would not be able to enjoy the homecoming football game in the rain. Tina got a photo of the band marching past our parking lot in their rain gear. Tina took a lot of photos, so she must have a ton of pictures from our visits and our time at Wesleyan.

I’m going to miss Tina terribly. She was the sister I never had and my only friend who preferred to hand-write letters in birthday and Christmas cards; there was very limited texting and emails. So, I have hard copies of several notes to remember her by. She would have loved this celebration service! I know she is watching. I will close with a poem by Maya Angelou, “When Great Trees Fall,” beginning at the third stanza.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed. Read less

Hello, I’m Kittie Simmons, Tina's roommate from West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, WV. I was invited to participate in this celebration service as Tina’s longest friend. I think Stephanie was being kind, when what she really meant was “Oldest” friend. Those of us lucky enough to live into our 70s and 80s are often someone’s “oldest” friend, in both senses of the word.

Tina was so proud to be in the first graduating class from South Carroll High School. She told me how the class ... Read moregot to choose their school colors, their mascot, name the yearbook, set the precedent for celebrations like graduation and prom, and determine how school rituals and ceremonies would be conducted. I’m sure Stephanie and Charlie have found her yearbook among her valued books. Next, she was off to college at West Virginia Wesleyan College, one of about 1400 students enrolled there.

The student housing office at Wesleyan was pretty smug about their ability to match up compatible roommates. But when Tina and I were chosen as roommates, the housing office won another match. We were an instant success, me as the oldest of three and the only daughter, the only one in my family to attend college, from a small town on the outskirts of Charleston, WV; and Tina, in the middle of five from a family of college students from Mt. Airy Maryland - a much more rural place in 1968. I always thought it was interesting that I ended up in Maryland, geographically closer to her family than she would ever be again. We spent the entire four years together, up until the semester she had to do her student teaching, forming a friendship that lasted over 50 years.

Can you remember Tina’s laugh? She had a wonderful laugh! One time she got the last laugh was April Fool’s Day our first year. We lived in a suite with a bathroom between two student rooms. She got up early and put vaseline on the bathroom door knobs and shaving cream on the toilet seat. There was something else with the mirror, but I have forgotten the details. Later that day when I was out of the room, she coiled up my mattress and spring-loaded it into my closet. Then she watched me open the closet door and collapsed in laughter as my mattress literally leaped out of the closet.

1968-1972 were interesting years to be at Wesleyan. The school, as you might have guessed, was loosely affiliated with the Methodist church and was the largest sanctuary in WV, so the annual conference of the UMC was held here every summer. You may recall that the VietNam war was in full swing during those years, and student protests were occurring across the nation, some at Wesleyan. When we started our freshman year, all the female dorms were closed with a 10:00 curfew weeknights; men were only permitted in the buildings on Sunday afternoons in the house parlor with the house mother present as chaperone. We wore beanies for the first several weeks and were subject to being stopped by an upper class student and required to recite the school song. Sunday midday dinner was dress-up, and served family style. We actually had a lights-out curfew at 11 pm and the RAs would make the rounds to be sure we were all in bed - many of us immediately got up to study by flashlight after they left. Every Tuesday morning at 10, the entire campus reported to the chapel for a service. We had to sign in on attendance sheets. By our senior year, all that had changed - rather dramatically for four short years. No more mandatory chapel, no formal Sunday dinner, men allowed in the dorms until midnight. A more relaxed dress code. It was definitely the 70s at Wesleyan!

Over the years, our families became closer as she made trips home with Charlie and Stephanie and my husband and I took our kids out to Mt. Airy to play with them and have a family meal with the Bollers. One time, when my son John was about 2, Mr. & Mrs Boller called us and told us we just had to come out that evening because a neighbor’s night blooming cereus was going to bloom, So, we headed an hour west to see such an important event and John was up pretty late that night. When Mr. Boller fell off the ladder while working on his radio tower and was seriously injured, I took the kids to see him at his U Md Rehab facility because Ms. Julia couldn’t drive in during the week. Our families became entangled, in a very good way.

Tina was my go-to resource for books. She always had a recommendation ready for a good read, or for a new book tip for my granddaughter. She must have been such a good teacher and I’m sure her students and parents loved her.

The last time I saw Tina, she came home to Melissa and Brian’s house and we ( my husband Glenn and I - he thinks he is an honorary alum from WVWC) picked her up there to drive back to Wesleyan for our 50th graduation anniversary in 2022 and to be inducted into the Emeritus Club. We drove the 5 hours down and 5 hours back talking and laughing all the way. Tina made scones for a car snack and we each had one. We took photos of a rainbow in Buckhannon when we stopped for gas. Then photos of a glorious sunset at our hotel. We took a campus tour and stood together for a photo in the lobby of our first dorm. We attended a banquet in a tent on campus (due to COVID restrictions) in a really cold drizzle. We were both upset that our names had been left off of the program booklet - the alumni office apparently was unable to merge the online registrations with the mail-in registrations. But we consoled ourselves with our lapel pins, dinner, and the good company of former classmates. The weather was pretty bad and we decided the next morning to just drive home since it was pouring and we would not be able to enjoy the homecoming football game in the rain. Tina got a photo of the band marching past our parking lot in their rain gear. Tina took a lot of photos, so she must have a ton of pictures from our visits and our time at Wesleyan.

I’m going to miss Tina terribly. She was the sister I never had and my only friend who preferred to hand-write letters in birthday and Christmas cards; there was very limited texting and emails. So, I have hard copies of several notes to remember her by. She would have loved this celebration service! I know she is watching. I will close with a poem by Maya Angelou, “When Great Trees Fall,” beginning at the third stanza.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed. Read less

<3
Opening Remarks
Welcome to you, family, friends, colleagues, and students of my mom, Tina, and thank you for being here with us to remember, love, and continue to learn about her. The program will be about an hour. Following the program will be an opportunity to share stories/thoughts about Tina here at the podium and/or on a passed open mic. Then there will be a reception with food, music, visiting, and dancing. My mom wanted a celebration of her life – she did not want people to be sad. But surely throughout today there will be tears and laughter.

There are so many things to say and so many ways to say them about Tina. Lucky for me, this is but one celebration of a lifetime of celebrations that I will have of her.

In the words of CS Lewis, “bereavement, or the fact of loss, is a universal and integral part of our ‘experience of love’. It is not a truncation of a relationship, but one of its phases; not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure.”

Today’s celebration... Read more is an expression of our continued ‘experience of love’ with Tina, a remembrance of her lovely earthly presence, and a display of her love of life and beauty that she imbued in her life and in us.

Closing Remarks
There is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive. And this is a gift. Through developing today’s program I have held grief close. Any form of practice will do – writing, drawing, meditation, prayer, dance, or something else. Through her loss, we have learned more about her and about ourselves, and that is how our relationship with her evolves. “For if you always think of her, she will never have gone.”

Following Jody’s performance of Tina’s chosen Beatles song, we will open the mic for sharing stories and remembrances about Tina. Gary Hensley, a long-time friend of Tina’s from the dance world, will warm the mic up for us. All are welcome to share. Following the open mic will be a few announcements and the reception. Let us now bask in the glow of the memories of Tina and be alive! Read less

<3
Opening Remarks
Welcome to you, family, friends, colleagues, and students of my mom, Tina, and thank you for being here with us to remember, love, and continue to learn about her. The program will be about an hour. Following the program will be an opportunity to share stories/thoughts about Tina here at the podium and/or on a passed open mic. Then there will be a reception with food, music, visiting, and dancing. My mom wanted a celebration of her life – she did not want people to be sad. But... Read more surely throughout today there will be tears and laughter.

There are so many things to say and so many ways to say them about Tina. Lucky for me, this is but one celebration of a lifetime of celebrations that I will have of her.

In the words of CS Lewis, “bereavement, or the fact of loss, is a universal and integral part of our ‘experience of love’. It is not a truncation of a relationship, but one of its phases; not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure.”

Today’s celebration is an expression of our continued ‘experience of love’ with Tina, a remembrance of her lovely earthly presence, and a display of her love of life and beauty that she imbued in her life and in us.

Closing Remarks
There is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive. And this is a gift. Through developing today’s program I have held grief close. Any form of practice will do – writing, drawing, meditation, prayer, dance, or something else. Through her loss, we have learned more about her and about ourselves, and that is how our relationship with her evolves. “For if you always think of her, she will never have gone.”

Following Jody’s performance of Tina’s chosen Beatles song, we will open the mic for sharing stories and remembrances about Tina. Gary Hensley, a long-time friend of Tina’s from the dance world, will warm the mic up for us. All are welcome to share. Following the open mic will be a few announcements and the reception. Let us now bask in the glow of the memories of Tina and be alive! Read less