Amy Elizabeth Shapiro

"Amy was so vibrant, vivacious, full of the love of life. She was truly a special gift to so many people."

Seat: 37G

A graduate of Stamford High School in Connecticut, Amy was on the track and tennis teams as well as on the staff of Vertigo, the literary magazine. During the summer of 1987, Amy was an intern at the Stamford Trader. She took photographs and wrote articles including an Arts Section cover story on a local summer theater group. Her boss there remembers her as "eager, smiling, charming- a soft light." At Syracuse she was on the photography staff of the campus newspaper, The Daily Orange.

A friend who wrote to Amy's mother said, "Amy was so vibrant, vivacious, full of the love of life. She was truly a special gift to so many people." Another letter writer added, "those of us touched by Amy have been permanently blessed. The legacy of her life is immortal because her spirit continues to move us."

Amy wrote poetry; and she leaves us this fragment:

She glanced toward the sky and tried to trace the fall of a tiny flake: But it blended into another and her thoughts blended with it. She remembered her youth and how beautiful life had been. Once, she too had been one of the fresh sparkles which glimmered in the moonlight But times does not stop. A gust of wind broke the synchroncity of the snowfall. The snow turned to rain, And as the last crystal was washed away, the woman closed her eyes, and she too, was gone.