This Monday nearly 200 friends and family members of the recently deceased Whitman junior Michael Quimpo gathered in the Reid ballroom for his memorial service.   At the request of his father, the service’s theme was a celebration of life.

“I wanted the service to be comforting for Michael’s family, but also to be accessible to the broader community,” said Adam Kirtley, Stuart religious counselor and service organizer.
In organizing the service, Kirtley said that his main goal was to involve the people who knew Quimpo.

“The service was a good thing,” said Quimpo’s housemate and senior Mary Simpson-Stanton.   “It helped some of us find closure, and [it was nice] to be in a physical space with other people who knew and loved him.”

The memorial service consisted of biblical and poetic readings, personal reflections, musical pieces and a photo slide show compiled by Quimpo’s family.

“Any small set of speeches and pictures is going to be inadequate to capture someone’s life, but I think the combination provided a fair glimpse of who he was,” said Quimpo’s Core professor Mitch Clearfield, one of the presenters of a personal reflection.

Quimpo’s advisor Bob Fontenot agreed with Clearfield, saying, “The three speakers painted a picture of a kind, loving, mischievous, intellectually alive and curious young man who eagerly tackled such things as learning to play flute, martial arts and doing incredibly heavy lifting, for a small man, during his summer job with the Summer Events Office.”

While the personal reflections created a portrait of who Quimpo was, the ending benediction sung by his family was undoubtedly one of the group’s favorite moments.

“Their  voices stirred emotions so deeply that if people were able to hold back their tears through the various eulogies, they couldn’t during the singing,” said Director of Communications Ruth Wardwell.  “It was clear to me that Michael came from a very close and caring family.”

Eighteen members of Quimpo’s family were in attendance and participated in the benediction.
“The most amazing thing about the weekend was Michael’s family,” said Kirtley.   “They are a remarkable group of people.”

The family’s strong faith inspired and consoled many who were mourning Quimpo.   According to Quimpo’s friend and sophomore Neda Ansaari, the message they shared was that “wherever Michael is, he wants all of us to celebrate his life, smile and giggle.”

During the memorial service Quimpo’s friends and family brought him to life once more through the loving memories and thoughts that were shared in a moving celebration of his life.

“The memorial service was done to celebrate his life and I think we definitely did that: remembering all those things that Michael did, his mischiefs and actions and the moments that his friends spent with him,” said Quimpo’s Ansaari.   “However, it was hard for me to accept that he was gone and he was not there anymore amongst us.”