Randall's Eulogy for Lori

Welcome to Horseshoe Farm and a celebration of Lori’s life. Thank you to all of the people have come out to remember and celebrate Lori – many from very far away. I’m Randy Lanou, Lori’s husband. I considered scheduling this event in 2035 thinking that I might be able to make it through talking about her and telling some stories about her. Instead, we are doing it now when the loss is sharp and fresh. I may be a bit halting and stop and go – I am asking for your understanding.

In the past weeks, I see our dogs looking for Lori. My guess is that they keep hoping that she will show up after a long trip. I know how they feel. The dogs never saw Lori after she died – she was just there one day and gone the next. I didn’t either. I kissed Lori goodbye when she left for the weekend and I picked up her ashes two weeks later. Lori’s life, dreams, work, and plans and our partnership ended in the middle of her life, not at the end. Still, her too-short life was well-lived.

I met Lori 37 years ago, almost to the day. I traveled from Chicago to Ithaca to see my sister and to celebrate our Mom’s 49th birthday and my 23rd birthday. Lori and Amy are friends and Lori was staying with her. I can’t claim love at first sight but I can say I was definitely interested and completely captivated. Lori was sassy, fun, hot, and smart. Within hours of meeting her, she tried to talk me into skinny dipping in the very cold water of Cayuga Lake. I said yes – of course. I started following her around like a lost puppy and that never fundamentally changed.

Lori moved to San Diego. I visited her, she visited me. Our first real date was a week in Baja California in Northern Mexico. We were both in complicated relationships – we disentangled from those to be together. I eventually persuaded her to leave Southern California and move to Chicago. The move was in a $500 dark grey overheating car with no air conditioning. We drove across the 105+ degree southern part of the country, stopped in New Orleans, went sailing out of Florida (to Bimini), and then took the last leg north to Chicago. All with boxes, houseplants, and a white lab mouse that Lori rescued that still retained his lab name of Balb-C. I remember the mouse sticking his head out of my shirt pocket to nibble on my beignet at the Café du Monde in the French Quarter in New Orleans.

Lori settled into my Oak Park home for a time and then we bought a house together in Maywood, a western suburb of Chicago then often referred to as the Lutheran Ghetto – think casserole dinners and mostly working-class people that could not afford the adjacent ritzy River Forest. We got married in the back yard of this house in 1992. Even then, Lori and Amy and family made the food for the event. I do not think that they knew that caterers existed. It didn’t matter – we could not afford them. Keeping in the theme of project-based family events, several of us finished painting the outside of our house in the two days before the wedding. I have a few crystal-clear memories from that day. Lori, of course, a radiant bride, wearing her mother’s wedding dress. Buca, Lori’s scruffy terrier mutt, pushing through the screened porch door during the ceremony. And, the abundant love and support from our families.

Lori never let me live down two things about our engagement. One, I talked to her Mom about my proposal plans prior to asking her. She felt that this limited her from the “no” answer. This was my plan. Two, where I actually asked her. I took her on a walk around the pond behind her parents’ home in New Jersey and was so nervous that I kept walking and did not stop to pop the question. We were very close to getting back and I was out of options. I failed to notice that we were basically standing by a less-than-picturesque drainage ditch. Still, she said yes.

We took our motorcycles on our honeymoon. She habitually rode on the left and I rode on the right so the “Just” sign was on her bike and the “Married” sign on mine. We rode from Chicago to Colorado to criss-cross the continental divide. Lori’s grandmother quietly passed away in her sleep a few days after Lori and I wed so part of our honeymoon was back in Jersey at her funeral. We returned after the funeral, rode to Telluride, and then took the long trek across Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois to home. Lori’s brother Chris is still riding her beloved 1986 BMW R65 that she rode on our honeymoon and on countless motorcycle camping trips over the years. At a camping trip to a BMW Rally outside of Chicago in 1993, Lori and I won the weenie bite championship. The contest is organized as follows: they dip a hot dog in mustard, tie it on a string and hang it from a bar so it is about 6’ off of the ground. Competitors ride two-up very slowly under the weenie and the passenger bites as much of the hot dog off as possible and then spits out the chunk of weenie for measurement. The team is disqualified if their feet touch the ground. The competition was intense and the initial round was so close that we had to run a bite-off. Ultimately, we proudly prevailed.

In 1994, we moved to North Carolina to go to graduate school – Lori to the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine and me to the College of Design. We leapfrogged – Lori worked while I was in school and I worked when she was in school. We thought that North Carolina might be just a stop for school but, instead, we made it our home. We bought and renovated a fairly desperate old farmhouse in Zebulon. After we sold that house, we were in apartments for a year or two. Then, we bought this place in 2000 and renovated the existing farmhouse. In 2014, 20 years to the day that we moved to North Carolina, we finished this house and moved here - our forever home.

We could not walk into a restaurant or store in Creedmoor without Lori seeing and chatting with clients and friends. She was a small town vet – she got to know her clients and their pets. She celebrated new furry additions to families, she cared for injured and sick animals, she encouraged preventative care, she (maybe not so gently) reminded owners that they were feeding their pudgy dog or cat too much chow, and she mourned the passing of beloved pets. Lori loved her job.

Our preferred definition of adventure is extreme discomfort remembered at leisure. This idea closely ties to many of our travel choices. While Lori was generally far more risk-averse than I am, she found an exception for travel. Street food – let’s have some. A dirt road not on the map – let’s take the 4wd and go. State Department warnings – generally not applicable to us. Unlabeled homemade beverages – please pour us a glass. Sketchy police checkpoints – we’ll get through. And we did. We went to Bolivia in 2003 – this was our first foray into international service work. The work was public health related – not my skill set so I drove the truck and carried the bags. We started in Cochabamba and traveled from there. We took a bus from Cochabamba to Sucre up a road meant primarily for goats, with a mountain on one side of the two-way one-lane road and more or less nothing on the other. We’ll never know why, but they played an old Speed Racer cartoon at staticky high volume for the all-night ride. There were no bathrooms on this bus nor anything that really resembled a bathroom at the infrequent stops. We rode companionably with people and livestock and harvested crops. As much as I would not give up that 12 hour experience, I figured out that the 40 minute flight on a local airline back was less than 60 bucks. While more than the $13 round trip fare on the bus, our whole team made this choice after I bought plane tickets for Lori and me. Even the plane was an adventure – no security, no line, just people on the tarmac trying to run up the stairs first. Lori and I could have carried pistols in shoulder holsters and no one would have noticed or cared. We drove to Tarabuco further up the mountains from the already high Sucre (over 9,000’) and had a 3 1/2 hour stop while we waited for the town and roads to reopen after an annual road rally finished. It is funny that rally cars flying through city streets at high speed taught us to slow down – but it did. No one seemed bothered by the time or the road closure. We just relaxed, watched that leg of the rally race, and bought drinks and food from the vendors that popped up. We drove to a lower elevation as well – Villa Tunari at about 850’ – down a more or less vertical gravel switchback road crowded with speeding logging trucks that we were certain were recently purchased from the Mad Max movie set. Villa Tunari is in the southwestern corner of the Amazon basin, they see a huge amount of rainfall, and the primary crop is Coca. Instead of coffee, we had the local drink at breakfast – Coca Tea which turns out to be an effective pick-me-up in the morning. I took a picture of a passing Land Rover – because I thought it was a cool antique truck – and that started a very messy conversation with the driver – a Coca farmer – who was quite certain that I was a US DEA agent. I owe resolution of that to Lori and Maria Correa, our friend and the woman leading the trip, who convinced them that I was just an idiot tourist, not DEA or anything similar.

The trip to Bolivia and our first trip to Nicaragua piqued our interest for International Service work. For more than eighteen years, Lori and I traveled most every year to Nicaragua, the trips alternating between planning trips and Rotary International Service projects and, of course, adventure and fun. In concert with our US and Nicaraguan partners, Lori ran logistics, I organized the projects. Like with most parts of our life partnership, we settled into a successful division of labor that was punctuated by squabbling, then jokes, and finally an amicable and workable solution.

Lori was stubborn, cynical, and difficult. I often teased her about changing her middle name to Sunshine to reflect her sunny outlook. This was generally met with a scowl and flipping me the bird. She took enormous pleasure in pointing out, in granular detail, how and why I was wrong on an array of topics and actions. Sometimes I asked her to just slow down and take a breath before she ripped further into a criticism. This was not effective. The only thing that was effective was turning the corner into making fun of ourselves and ending up laughing and forgetting about the beginning of the conversation. We thankfully aligned on the big things and, of course, we had the day to day moments on which we never agreed. I often thought: how is it that a 58 year old woman cannot or will not coil and put away a goddamn garden hose? Now, I would happily coil and put away every garden hose in North Carolina to be able to hang out with Lori again.

Lori loved warm, clear, blue water. She was happy on a boat, she could snorkel and swim for hours on end, and she was content on a white sand beach. We chartered around the world – many oceans and many ports - and we sailed our boat, or rather Lori’s boat, Silver Girl, from our home port in New Bern. Our last sail together was just a few days before she died. We sailed to Beaufort over the Independence Day weekend while Tropical Storm Chantal was working her way towards the coast. We sailed home on a spectacular day on the storm’s coattails with clear skies and strong winds, mostly zipping along at hull speed. Lori jumped into her favorite routine, moving between making food in the galley and visiting and line work on deck.

Lori and I each have our environmental priorities. I am focused on clean energy and clean water, Lori was focused on re-use, re-purposing, recycling, and composting. She would go to the end of the earth to recycle a tiny scrap of plastic and then would take a 30 minute, steaming hot, two-head shower. We carried these old (re-used) pretzel containers for our compost to New Bern and we would haul one or two jugs of the stinking, fetid scraps back home on every trip. The most extreme (and international) composting incident happened during a canal boat charter trip to the Rideau Canal in Canada in 2022. For a somewhat strange host of reasons, we drove up with Quito (our smallest dog), towing a horse trailer, and packing was easy – lots of room. Unbeknownst to me, Lori brought several containers for scraps to provide even more compost for her garden. All I could think about at the Canada to US border crossing was do you need to declare decaying vegetables and coffee grounds? We did not declare – compost smuggling was successful.

For Lori, there was no problem so large that it could not be solved by mulch. She felt loved when I made her things that supported gardening and farming and cooking – a grape arbor, a greenhouse, a chicken coop, or our house – but these seemingly important things were eclipsed by bringing home a truckload of mulch. I did not get this for a few years, but she did not just want mulch for projects, she wanted to have a pile available at all times – sort of a musty, earthy, security blanket. And so we kept a stockpile of mulch in the pasture.

Lori described herself as a recovering Catholic - she was not religious at all. She had no certainty about what happened after death. Indeed, her main theory could more or less be summed up by the idea of composting – that our bodies return to the natural world and new life begins. As close as she got to spiritual was her connection to nature. She was open and curious but steadfastly refused to accept any black and white answer about the afterlife or any statement that prescribed if you act this way you will be rewarded after your time on earth.

I hope so. That was often Lori’s answer when talking about what happened after death. In discussions with Bob, my Mom’s husband, about transcendence and the separation of consciousness from the body, her answer was: I hope so. When my Dad passed away and someone said that they hoped that Mel was with people he loved, her thought was: I hope so. When Billy Joel said that he would rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, her answer was: me, too. Whenever one of us said something particularly dark and snarky (but funny), we would say that we were going to hell – but neither of us believes that. When John Prine died and they played his song “When I Get to Heaven,” her comment was: I hope so. When I see an osprey soaring overhead, a bluebird eating at one of her feeders, or, her favorite, a dragonfly, perched companionably next to me on the porch in front of our home, I wonder if she is there. I hope so.

I have no regrets about our life together except the end that came too soon. Our almost 33 year marriage and 37 year partnership was in a good place. Even knowing the inexplicable end, I would joyfully choose to be with Lori again. The time that I had with Lori makes me the luckiest man alive.

My last text string from Lori ... after storm Chantal hit central NC.

All y'all! I have to say thank you for hosting probably the most beautiful remembrance of life celebrations that I have ever attended. Beautiful, wonderful people who went all out to channel the spirit of Lori. I loved all of the small (but huge touches) that your cast put out to honor Lori and her spirit. It was truly amazing and thought-provoking. I first met Lori when I started working in a shared laboratory with Dr. Law (my boss) and her boss. She coached me on everything and trained me to be a good scientist. And, we of course became good friends. As everyone does, I loved her explosive laugh, good humor and sweet nature. I backed her through all of her veterinary applications, which was tough because she was so deserving of the degree that she eventually got=WIN! And, I will forever remember the reactions (which were usually a scream of MARTA!) she had when I would put an old banana into her mailbox, an item she completely deplored. So many other memories (our first and last bar fight with Randy and Lori, on our first ever outing.......we were lucky they were willing to go out with us again! And, the wonderful Thanksgiving, with much wine and beer, and of course SKEET!!! She will be forever missed, and I will always appreciate the love and light that she brought into my life. We are all so lucky to have known her, she was a very special woman.

Cuzzins pic with Lori in the background. At her memorial.

Amy Joy's Eulogy for Lori:

Lori had a long-term relationship with at least one other Lanou. We met at Cornell in the 80’s. I am deeply grateful that she married my brother. For me this meant it was easy to maintain and grow our friendship over multiple decades.

Lori worked in the same plant pathology lab as my then partner, Steve. They both loved genetics/science, beer, slipping out of the lab to go sledding, swimming, and boating or to enjoy a libation. Many of my clearest memories from that time have to do with spending time in hot tubs and her wiry haired terrier mix, Buca.

I had never met a dog who would wait (mostly patiently) outside a building for their person for hours. Buca would wait at their lab building’s front door. Sometimes he would be let in by someone going in. When he did, he would go directly up several flights of stairs and down a corridor to the lab where she worked, and then would jump straight up in the air repeatedly until someone saw his ears flopping or face peering into the window on the top half of the door. Lori would let him in, give him a rub and a squeeze and lead him back out to wait again at the front door until she was done.

One time Lori traveled for a few days and left Buca with Steve and me. By the second day of waiting for her to return, he slipped out the door and ran straight for the little truck that we had transported him in. The window was partway open (about 5”) and he somehow managed to jump high enough to scramble into the truck to wait for her. We brought him food, water and came and took turns sitting with him there as he was not willing to get out (imagine mama bear with cubs nearby) and come back inside the house. Luckily, she returned later that day. From early on she had a deep bond with animals and knew she wanted to be their doctor.

Like Buca, Lori is both strong-minded and tenaciously connected with those she loves. I learned this years ago and it has played out over the decades I’ve known her. Even then our shared connection was through food and fun. We baked and cooked together in a rented kitchen in the early years of Café Decadence, our small business in Ithaca, near Cornell. We sailed on a wooden rowboat with a removeable mast on Cayuga Lake (we had to take it down to get under the bridges), had dance parties at our home that regularly ended in squishing too many people into the homemade hottub Steve and I built next to our front door. In the snowy winters, Lori usually instigated jumping out of the hottub into the snow to lie down and flap her arms to make snow angels, goading others to join her. Together we laughed, danced, goofed off and invented recipes and baked muffins, cakes, brownies, pies, and ultimate cookies (which you will get to try later) together into the wee hours of the morning.

Lori took me home one holiday weekend as we were too far away to go home to CA for a weekend. I came to know her so much better from meeting her parents and her then quite little brothers. Although I also hail from New Jersey, I had not experienced a household quite like theirs. The home was beautiful and comfy, filled with items her parents had made. Carole and Mario welcomed us warmly and everyone clearly cared about each other. And, it was SO LOUD! I remember standing in their kitchen incredulous. They all seemed to talk at once and all at top volume—likely to try to be heard over each other. To my tender ear it seemed they were rarely in agreement but shouted at each other without malice.

Loyalty begets loyalty as evidenced by the outpouring of love and shared loss so many of us feel.

As many of you know, Randy and Lori hosted thanksgiving for all who wanted to join since the early 90s. One of the best days of the year for many. Randy and our Dad, Mel, made a table specifically for it. My role at Thanksgiving grew after Carole died. I had the honor of stepping into her mom’s role of sous chef and kitchen side-kick. And, I took on answering the many questions from people who were helping with food prep or who wanted to do so. I also used care when asking her the ones I didn’t know the answer to. We got into a groove over the years of making feasts together. I came to know when it made sense just to go ahead and make something on the list and figure out the answers to the questions myself. She was gracious when I goofed up. Like just last year when I added too much liquid to her homemade GF cornbread when making the stuffing. It was more like a grainy pudding.

You may not know that one of the reasons Lori made so many of the dishes without meat or dairy was that she prided herself in consuming all of the leftovers. She would report to me sometimes weeks later when she had finished the Brussel Sprouts or kale salad or peirogis.

In November 2023, I took a job at UNC Chapel Hill causing regular and challenging disruption to my home life in Asheville. And, now, for many reasons, I am grateful that I did. Grateful for Sophie (my spouse) who has weathered my regular disappearances and welcomed me home week after week of 500+ miles of round trip travel. And, grateful for getting to spend ordinary time with my brother and Lori. Although I have always felt welcome here, over this time their lovely home cemented itself as my home away from home. I got to know their daily and weekly routines and could plan my schedule to catch some evening or early AM time with them. I observed how Lori could “fit 10-pounds of shit into a 5-pound bag” seemingly effortlessly during her work weeks. And, to learn why she resisted doing so on the weekend days.

So many mornings I sat at the island in their kitchen drinking tea, chatting and firing off emails or updating my calendar while I watched her feed her sourdough, empty the dishwasher, make a massive bowl of salad or grains and vegetable for her (and often my lunch), make crumpets, then head out to water or harvest, tend the chickens, and whatever else was on her mental list that morning. Most mornings this was all before 8. She was fast and yet tended to all this with care and precision, often giving herself some little challenge. Like guessing the right amount of water (100g) in the plastic Tito’s cup to feed her starter before weighing it. Upon my departure each week, Lori made sure I had as many plantlings, eggplants or other fruits of the harvest, crackers, crumpets, eggs, hops, leftovers, hot sauce, etc, that I could use and share.

On each stay, despite our busy schedules we usually managed to cook a meal or two together and she would share whatever she was experimenting with at the time. Recently, it was incredible bisque style soups, grilled sweet potatoes, and her delicious nut cheeses. When we had some weekend time we would weed, plant, harvest, etcetera, together.

Much of the food you will enjoy while you are here was touched by Lori. From plantlings started in her greenhouse and grown in my or her garden, through recipes created by me or others years ago which she adapted for current use. The care she took to use every edible part of the plants she grew or procured and the fierceness that undergirded her commitment to composting and recycling, also drove her food sourcing and food preparation. Her local farmer, Deborah, teared up when I stopped by the market last Saturday to order tomatoes for today. Lori delighted in finding a new or speciality ingredient (cacao nibs from Nica, Merguez from Chile) or recipe during her travels (Peruvian causa and Mexican salsas) and sharing these with others who make and love good food.

Living Forward

A friend of mine shared with me the notion of living forward after a dear loved one dies. I keep thinking about that… and about how I can bring Lori with me as I do so. Here are some ideas…

1) “Can you believe it is just the starter?” Lori said to me as she made crumpets on one of those early mornings. As a rule, I do not bake. When I left Café Decadence in the late 80’s, I felt like I had already done a lifetime worth of baking. Yet, in the week after Lori died I knew I had to adopt some of her sourdough starter and translate the early morning observations into the yummy foods she made from it. Perhaps you have tried my rendition of her sourdough crackers on the appetizer table.

2) Eight of us went together to get tattoos led by friends who were with her at the beach when she died. Ask Rose to tell you about the fried egg, or Sheila to show you her Zinnias or others about theirs. Each has a story connecting us to our friend and loved one.

3) Share lessons I have learned from her and carry her forward in our ways of planting, tending, cooking and eating. For me that is what today and the preparations coming up to this moment are about. Consider taking up composting, collect and recycle soft plastics, find a spot to keep a comforting pile of mulch, try a new food or recipe, warm up to hot sauce and hoppy (aka bitter) beer (for example, Hop Tank brewed for this event by Sophie).

4) Working with local friends and family to tend her garden and make sure the food produced goes to someone who will enjoy it.

5) Visit her amazing earring collection in the house on the “thanksgiving table” (lower level). They are prepared and displayed with care by Barbar for earring wearers to select one to take with you. Also there you will find a selection of pepper sauces, figs, spices, and herbs collected and prepared for keeping the harvest. Please take something you will use.

6) And for the non-human animals in your life, spay or neuter cats and dogs--strays and those you live with. Show up for your veterinary appointments, feed your 4-legged loved-ones the right amount of food to keep them healthy, love on and teach your dogs, talk to your birds, squeeze and hold close your cats, and by all means save the turtles crossing the road.

I finished writing these stories about Lori at the beach near Wilmington as I was trying to make my peace with Poseidon and the ocean itself. Lori was my confidant, loud laugh twin, partner in all things plant- and food-related, sister and dear friend. I miss her more than words can express.

Today as we celebrate her life and mourn our individual and collective loss, I ask you to reflect on how you will live forward and perhaps bring a little of Dr. Lori Ann Scappino with you.

Samantha McClayton's Eulogy for Lori: 

Hello, my name is Samantha, and I am Randy and Lori’s niece. Thank you all for coming today – it’s amazing to see how much Lori was loved and that she had such an impact on so many people.

I had the date July 12th, 2025, marked on our calendar since about March of this year, for very different reasons. After living in Arlington, Virginia, outside of Washington DC for about 8 years, my husband, Jeremy, and I decided to move here to the farm. This had been something we both wanted to do for a long time, and after many discussions with Randy and Lori, we finally decided on the date to make the leap. It was going to be difficult to leave all our close friends and Jeremy’s family, so we waited to make the move until mid-July so we could properly wrap things up in DC. Every day since we made the decision to move, we talked about all the things we were going to do with Randy and Lori. We spent a month living at the farm previously, and I loved being a part of their daily lives – they found a rhythm in life amidst the busy-ness and chaos of their schedules. It felt like all the pieces were finally coming together in our lives – we were on the cusp of an exciting new chapter, living at the farm with them.

Moving weekend finally arrived – Randy drove up to Arlington with a trailer hitched to his truck to help us move. Lori had a beach trip planned with her Rotary friends that weekend and offered to help us move, but we told her not to worry about us, enjoy her weekend away, and we’ll see her on Sunday.

After hours of loading up our things into the trailer, we finally finished and called it a day. We returned to our mostly empty apartment, and Randy and Jeremy split the last beer that was in our fridge. It was then that Randy got the call that there had been an accident. Randy left immediately to start driving down to Lori. About an hour later, Randy called us with the news that changed our lives forever. The day that had been marked on our calendar for months, the day that we talked about endlessly, will now be marked as one of the worst days of our lives. A day that was filled with anticipation, excitement, and sweat, ended with tear-stained faces, deep sorrow, and hollowness.

The farm has always held a very special place in my heart. It has been my grounding place, a place that has stayed constant throughout my entire life. After Jeremy’s first trip down here, he fell in love with it too. We have been together for over 11 years now. He proposed here, in the pasture near the grape arbor, where the greenhouse stands today. The day we got engaged, Randy semi-jokingly said ‘You all can get married here if you want!’ – and to his surprise, we took him up on that offer.

As many of you know, we are a ‘project-based family’. We spent months preparing for the wedding at the farm. We built the arbor we wed under, the benches for the ceremony, we mowed, we mulched, built the fire pit, the list goes on and on. Of course, there were numerous spreadsheets and lists for the occasion – something Randy and I fondly share a love for.

On top of all that, Lori and Amy approached us with – in our minds – what was a crazy idea. They wanted to cook all the food for our wedding day. We were already turning their house into a wedding venue; who in their right mind would volunteer to add more on their plate? We told them that we would love that, but that felt like an immense ask. But that was their way to show their love to us, and we felt that love deeply. They spent months creating the menu, experimenting with different recipes and prepping to ensure everything was perfect. And it was in every way.

Randy transformed the shop into a gorgeous wedding reception that held 125 of our closest family and friends, many of whom are here today. He did the same for today’s event, where we have all gathered to celebrate Lori’s life.

Neither of us could envision our wedding anywhere else. Not just because the property is beautiful, but because what Randy and Lori built truly felt like home. The arbor we got married under now sits in the entryway to Lori’s garden.

My first memories of Randy and Lori are here at the farm. They moved here when I was around 5 years old. Around that same time, unsurprisingly, Lori taught me my first curse word. Lori had exclaimed ‘Goddamn!’ and I immediately parroted ‘Goddamn!’ right back. My mom had a ‘swear jar’ and made Randy and Lori pay up for that one. Now as an adult, my curse word vocabulary has expanded, and I found myself cursing almost more than she did.

Randy and Lori always made a point to take me along with them on their travels, including a Rotary Service trip to Nicaragua when I was 16. I came home from that trip a changed person, in all the best ways possible. I am forever grateful to them for giving me those opportunities.

Lori has always told me that I have a home here, and that I could come any day, anytime, even if it’s the middle of the night. I can’t even tell you how many times I almost took her up on that offer over the years. I always knew I had a place to come home to.

Lori and I shared a deep love of animals. Since I was young, I would follow Lori around as she cared for all them on the farm. This included Baja, the African Grey Parrot, numerous chickens, turkeys, ducks, cats, dogs, goats, sheep, Zebu, horses and Maya, the donkey. One time I went with her to volunteer at a spay and neuter clinic with Operation Catnip. I don’t think I was all that helpful other than trying to calm down the cats before they went under for surgery, but the visual of her squeezing out the balls of male cats all afternoon will always stick with me.

Now, with her gone, I am trying my best to take care of her animals, as she taught me.

From when I was 12 years old to 18 years old, I was in a difficult family situation and was isolated from the rest of my family for many years. Back in 2021, Randy, Lori, Amy, Jeremy and I were at a brewery and chatting about that time in my life. I ended up breaking down in tears, upset that we missed out on spending time together during all those years. As Lori wiped away a few tears as well, I vividly remember what she told me – “Yes, we missed out on that time together, but we still have now.” And she was right, and we made the absolute best of all the years we did have together.

My perspective has changed, and my priorities shifted. Everything is different now. We are doing our best to tend to her garden and water all the plants. I don’t know what I’m doing, but Amy is amazing, of course, and a wonderful teacher. Amy and Lori were a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen, cooking the most incredible meals I’ve ever eaten. Amy has made this impossible transition a bit easier with her cooking. She cooks similarly to Lori – they met in a kitchen. It made being at the farm feel more like home, like she was still here. Lori’s comfort foods, are now comforts for us.

I still find her long gray hairs every once in a while, and it makes me smile. I’m surrounded by her presence at the farm, with constant reminders, each a heartbreaking blessing. But there is a gaping hole in my heart that will never be filled. Time is the most precious thing that we have, and little is in our control. Our time was cut short. Similar to what COVID did to all of us, my memories and thoughts have now been split into two – the before and the after.

Lori was one of the most selfless, giving, intelligent, and loving people I’ve ever met. Words cannot begin to express how important she was to me, and always will be. I’m so grateful for all of the amazing memories, laughs, adventures, and meals we got to share together.

In the words of Paul Simon, sail on silver girl, sail on by. 

Sam Scappino's Eulogy for Lori:

Lori was a wonderful Rotarian and a great friend for those of us who knew her in Rotary.  She will be terribly missed.  We are so sorry for her family's loss.

Chris and Sam’s wedding weekend

Chris and Sam’s wedding weekend

Chris and Sam’s wedding weekend

Chris and Sam’s wedding weekend

Chris and Sam’s wedding weekend

Chris and Sam’s wedding weekend

Lori cared and loved our fur babies — with Lori

It’s been about a month since we lost you, Lori. I have a gaping hole in my heart that will never be filled. I’m surrounded by your presence at the farm, with constant reminders of you, each a heartbreaking blessing. You are one of the most selfless, giving, intelligent, and loving people I’ve ever met. Words cannot begin to express how important you were to me, and always will be. I’m so grateful for all of the amazing memories, laughs and meals we got to share together. There’s so much more to say, but getting the words out is more difficult than I thought. Tomorrow is never guaranteed. I love you and miss you so fucking much, Lori.