The Memorial Service for Kim Barry
Greenberg Lounge at Vanderbilt Hall, November 23, 2004
The sudden death of Kim Barry, one of New York University School
of Law's most outstanding students, left those who knew her in shock.
More than 300 people gathered at a Law School memorial service to
try to make sense of their loss. As family, friends, and professors
packed Greenberg Lounge shoulder to shoulder, one phrase came up
repeatedly: Kim would light up the room.
Indeed, her glow infused the service. As people took their seats,
the soft transcendence of Paul Simon's Graceland played across the
speakers, and a screen projected a photograph of Kim wearing a brilliant
red dress, and the bright, open smile that would reappear in each
of the scores of photographs that took its place.
Dean Richard Revesz, began the service by striking a note of simplicity
that ran throughout the evening. "We were so lucky to have
Kim here...a woman with a super powerful intellect, she loved beauty,
music and people, in short, she loved life. I know Kim would have
wanted us to use her death as a challenge to move forward as well,
and I know she would want us to have done it with a light heart,"
he said.
Revesz was followed by New York University President, John Sexton,
from whose office Kim had been poached to be the inaugural Furman
Fellow. It was just one of a dazzling series of academic achievements,
and at the time of her death she was being considered for faculty
positions at top law schools across the country.
Sexton's speech emphasized Kim's personal impact. He remembered
which chair she sat on in his first year civil procedure class.
For him, it was "worth it to teach if you just have one of
these in a lifetime."
As each speaker took their turn, it became obvious that Kim touched
people in a way that was deeply personal. It was the legacy of a
truly open heart. But the true power of this came through in a story
from NYU School of Law Professor Bryan Stevenson.
Kim was a member of the first class to go with Stevenson to Alabama
as part of an initiative to combine clinical law training with legal
representation for death row inmates. He described how she took
the case of a 17-year-old, and put together a plea that is still
being used in the prisoner's defense.
Stevenson related a conversation between Kim and one of the young
man's prison guards. After leaving a hearing in which the harsh
circumstances of the defendant's up-bringing was put before the
court as mitigating evidence, the guard told her that he didn't
see why a prisoner's childhood should make any difference to his
sentence.
Kim turned to the guard and gently explained that when people are
deprived of love and inflicted with pain, they become filled with
anger and have no room for compassion. As she walked away, she grinned,
and shaking a finger at the hardened Southern correctional officer,
said, "don't you be mean to him, be nice!"
The guard said, "I won't be mean to him." To which Kim
replied, "I said don't just not be mean to him, be nice!"
"She gave this young man hope," said Stevenson. "It
is not an exaggeration to say she saved that young man's life."
This startling combination of strength and humor returned again
and again with the memories of each of those who spoke. On several
occasions, an anecdote provoked a ripple of fond smiles, or a burst
of laughter. Despite their sadness, Kim had the same lightness of
heart in their memories as she did in life.
Ashby Jones, a friend from Seattle, described how he could hear
Kim's voice in his head, bemoaning the cold closed doors of New
York, in comparison to the warm welcome she was used to in the Bahamas.
"I can hear her voice now," he said. "'It's just
so silly, it's just so silly, people's doors are always closed.'"
To which he remembered replying, "Kim, never turn up at my
house uninvited. God made telephones."
The service was punctuated by a reading by Kim's boyfriend, Gavin
Butler and her friend, Dawn Osborne ('98) of Jorge Luis Borges'
"Instants." The pair stood with their arms around each
other, and took turns to read from a poem that urges us to remember
life is too important to be taken too seriously.
Towards the end of the service, a microphone was passed among the
seats to mourners who wanted to share their memories. As hands shot
up across the room, what was most striking was the range of voices
that were woven together by Kim's life. Old school friends and law
students took turns with judges and Bahamanian dignitaries.
After an evening of so many stories, the final words were left
for Tracy Barry, Kim's sister.
Bright and unbowed, Tracy described how, on hearing that Kim was
in critical condition, family members had rushed to New York from
across the globe and sat in vigil by her bedside. Yet, while enduring
"something we never thought we would be able to…with my
sister on life support, there was a lot of laughter," she said.
Tracy embodied the meaning that could be drawn from Kim's death;
that sorrow and laughter are not contradictions, only equal expressions
of a fully lived life.
By Dan Bell
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