Saturday, February 06, 2010
Friends and family gather to remember Morgan Harrington: 'She was not a perfect child, but she was an original'
Hundreds gathered to share their grief and celebrate the life of Morgan Harrington.
Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times
Dan Harrington hugs a friend following the memorial Mass honoring his daughter, Morgan, on Friday.
Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times
Morgan Harrington's family held her memorial service at St. Andrew's Catholic Church in Roanoke.
Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times
Attendees take orange and maroon ribbons at a Mass honoring Morgan Harrington, the 20-year-old Virginia Tech student who was recently found dead.
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Matt Chittum | The Roanoke Times
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The friends and family of Morgan Harrington gathered at St. Andrew's Catholic Church on Friday to memorialize the zesty young woman known to her parents as "our child of light."
Seeking comfort in the somber cadences of Catholic prayer, more than 500 people braved snow and treacherous roads to pay tribute to the Roanoke County woman. Sharing the grief were friends of Harrington's from Northside High School, her classmates from Virginia Tech and strangers who never knew her but who followed the story of Harrington's disappearance and death in the media.
"She stood out in a crowd, not just because she was so beautiful with her long blond hair and her sparkling blue eyes, but because of something much deeper within her," said Father Steve McNally of the Church of the Transfiguration in Fincastle, who delivered the homily during the memorial Mass.
Harrington, 20, vanished from a Metallica concert in Charlottesville on Oct. 17. Her skeletal remains were found Jan. 26 in a hayfield in Albemarle County, 10 miles south of where she was last seen.
In her brief life, she was known for her passion for travel, fashion and music (from Jerry Garcia and the Beatles to Metallica); her hug-happy relationships with her friends and family; and the delight she took from working -- and playing -- with children. She aspired to be a teacher.
"I always said she was beautiful on the inside and out, and she truly was," her father, Dan Harrington, told those in the pews of St. Andrew's. "Morgan was an original. ... She was not a perfect child, but she was an original."
Following the memorial Mass, the family hosted a celebration of Harrington's life in a ballroom of Hotel Roanoke.
As a machine blew bubbles into the air, throngs watched a slide show of pictures of Harrington and gathered at a table where her belongings were displayed. The items included stiletto heels and cowboy boots, a red sequin dress, her passport, makeup kits and a blow dryer, sundry bracelets, baubles and an essay on the beach she had written in elementary school. (She received an A minus after misspelling "television.")
