Krishna, I am so very sorry! 

Sending love to you and yours, 

Mark

When we first moved to Ithaca nine years ago , it was Emma who first invited me over for drinks, crafts, and the Bachelor. We were here for Eliot’s postdoc, but I was excited to be singled out and included. What’s more fun than a bunch of female ornithologists gathering to heckle the Bachelor? And who is this cool woman who can watch reality TV with other Cornell scientists? She could be all the things and turn some social norms upside down.

She became my confidant and we’d pick blueberries and hike monkey run through scary and uncharted times, through her meeting Krishna (and family) and falling in love, eventual pregnancies, and sharing motherhood. I knew she’d run an honest motherhood mothership and that I’d be able to learn heaps from her. She wanted to be a mother so very much and it was delightful to witness.  Oh, how she poured love into Veda in every detail of her life.

My attempt at  life balance in the last year included two things on the best weeks: Emma and yoga. We’d meet for yoga at the community center and then steal away for a few extra minutes between class and children’s bedtimes to drink cheap Aldi beer in the shelter out back or when the mosquitoes were too bad, in one another’s cars. We’d download the week’s challenges of getting calories into our petite “bebes,” the nursing, the weaning, trying figure out how the heck to fill our own cups so that we don’t lose ourselves to caregiving, and navigating partnerships. And she did it, she still did her trip to the Verdin with students in tow. What a cool lady.

The last time I saw her I peered in at her before going in feeling so grateful for this incredibly cool, smart, beautiful, authentic, and down-to-earth lady. She had a fabulous haircut by her sister Lily and some fun animal pattern pants. She was telling the nurses how to properly calculate dosage and correcting their misunderstandings. We walked the halls of the oncology floor and peered in at all the older folks and she rightfully said, this is just so unbelievable and wrong. She was too young. She didn’t want to miss out on her family. 

She was absolutely hilarious and clever, thoughtful and kind, curios and open, and the best listener I’ve ever met. She  had a way of making us all feel like such a priority. She wouldn’t let me by with half-assed explanations. She would always make me say what I meant by something. And that openness and interest made me feel so utterly accepted and seen. There are so very many of us who Emma shone her light on. I’m holding you all in my heart. I am so grateful for her family and I’m thinking of you all so very much. 

Well, I guess you can count me with the fan club folks who looked up to Emma - the unimpeachably cool, shockingly real, utterly and unassumingly badass science woman. If I'm being totally honest, for a lot of our friendship I think I was a little intimidated being around someone I thought so highly of! It wasn't until around the time I left Ithaca that I felt like I could really exit fanboy-mode when I was hanging out with her. I got to go on one of the infamous desert trips, meet up in Alaska a little, and eventually come back to Ithaca and meet Krishna and lovely Veda in their beautiful little homestead full of finches. Such wonderful experiences, and I'm so grateful for them. Not least because that's when I started to get a more complete picture of her -- not just the exciting, unique, funny, brilliant, cool... all those parts still there, but then there's this warmth, this joy. Love, I think. In her existence in the world, there was just a whole lot of love. And I wonder if maybe that's where the rest of those awesome qualities might be coming from.

It's awful to lose her, and when I think about it I still feel this undirected anger that she's gone, that I and everyone here and the world in general doesn't have her anymore. But it's also pretty inspiring to see what impact she's had on everyone here, and undoubtedly others too. She lived her life lovingly, and seems like that love really did something good for the world.

Emma and I were down the hall from each other's labs during graduate school. We played on the same beer-league grad school softball team, and we went on the SW Field Trip together twice. One year during softball, I was so pregnant I couldn't run, and Emma had hurt her wrist and couldn't bat, so I batted and she ran in her ever-present flip-flops. That was strictly against the rules but the other teams didn't think we were much of a threat! Emma often got to first base though! 

She was always a ray of light and didn't let things get to her. The undergrads on the SW trip could be annoying, and so was all of the driving and the heat, but Emma just rolled with it. She was also incredibly smart and great with the students, and she was terrific at injecting fun ideas into our programming. Overall she was wonderful to work with and a treasure as a friend!

We lost touch after grad school and I wish we hadn't. I was incredibly sad to hear of her passing and can only imagine the hole she has left in many hearts. My sincere condolences to her whole family.

I remember when I first met Emma it was like finding a unicorn. I was always in awe of her. She was one of the smartest people I’d ever met, and just naturally and inherently cool, but completely without an ego.

In looking back at our pictures together, I realized I look giddy in every one, because I was. She made life FUN. She was a partner in crime and a true friend of the heart. I feel so lucky that we could lean on each other (usually with a glass of champagne, spicy potstickers, and some reality tv or the Simpsons) through so many eventful times in our lives. I would’ve been lost without her steady, warm friendship and support.

Emma was one of the sparkliest people I’ve ever met, but watching her become a mother was like seeing her sparkles turn up to eleven. Veda has her mother’s inner light, and it’s a comfort to think about what that amazing girl will accomplish.

Emma will be so very missed by so very many. Losing her is immeasurable but the love she leaves in the world is tremendous. I’m so so thankful to have shared in a small part of that.

Emma was an amazing friend and coworker - bringing light, laughter, and a brilliant mind to everything she did. I always admired her thrifted/vintage clothes which she revealed that her sister Lily often have sourced for her. A real treat at the Lab was when we would sit together and look through bird photos to find the winners for the weekly photo contest that FeederWatch hosted - every bird was "darling" or "a little cutie" - making it very difficult to pick the best photo! Occasionally, Emma would bring in cranberry chocolate chip scones from cranberries she had foraged at the local bog - so delicious! One of my favorite memories is when Emma smuggled baby finches into the Lab and hand-fed them at her desk throughout the day. She was so dedicated to keeping those little ones alive. This may have been the only time ever that Emma closed her office door :).  

It's both heartwarming and heartbreaking to read everyone's memories of Emma and look at photos of her life adventures. She lived her life well and it's a terrible loss to her friends, family, Krishna, and Veda that she's no longer with us. My deepest sympathies to all those grieving Emma.