Community gathers to honor and celebrate the life of Lucy Nash
The Preston Arts Center was filled with pink Saturday morning as the community gathered to celebrate the life of 9-year-old Lucy Nash, a Cairo Elementary School fourth-grader who died earlier this month.
The Rev. Lauren McDuffie told the audience that Lucy was a person who instinctively knew to find those who needed comfort and lift them up. She said no one ever felt inferior “when Lucy was around” and every “place became a little more colorful with Lucy showed up.”
“She knew how to bring out the God colors in the world better than anyone else,” McDuffie said. Lucy could “see people and meet people with exactly the love they needed. Lucy was all light and love.”
The PAC was filled with attendees dressed in pink to honor Lucy and to continue the support that began the weekend after she collapsed on the playground on the first day of school. That next Monday, while Lucy was in Riley’s Children Hospital, students, faculty and staff of every county school and employees of myriad businesses wore pink to show support. Many also painted their pinkie fingernail pink. They shared photos on social media with the hashtag #pinkiesup4lucy.
It wasn’t just contained to Henderson County. Reports of pink for Lucy came from nearby counties and throughout the state in the following days, as well as from around the world.
It was this kind of effect—Lucy’s effect—that McDuffie also spoke about. She said Lucy’s given name, Luciana, means “bringer of light.”
“Lucy’s light hasn’t gone out,” she said. “It has changed. Her light has spread far and wide, touching lives in ways we can scarcely imagine.”
Classmate Hudson Stevenson told the crowd that he and Lucy became best friends on the first day of school in the first grade when she came to him when he was crying on the playground.
He said Lucy’s favorite song was “It’s Raining Tacos” and her favorite color was blue. They liked to play baseball and Donkey Kong together.
“I love you, Lucy,” he said. “You’ll always be my best friend.”
According to information from her father’s Facebook feed, Lucy on Aug. 7 was first taken to Deaconess Hospital Henderson, then to Deaconess Gateway, before being lifeflighted to Riley’s Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, where she died several days later. Her father, Ryan Nash, wrote on Aug. 13 that his daughter has irreversible loss of brain function and her organs would be donated.
McDuffie reminded the audience that grief and sadness are often woven into those times in life when people feel unsteady and unmoored, but that God is there.
“God draws near to the broken hearted,” she said.