‘She gave these kids a second chance to live’
Article written in The Deseret News and posted here in this blog entry for today.
Family and friends show their emotion as the casket of Heather Christensen is taken from the Alpine Tabernacle, in American Fork, as the American Fork High School Band plays outside before the funeral in Delta Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009. Christensen died on October 10 in a bus accident when the marching band was returning from a competition in Idaho.MARK JOHNSTON/Daily Herald
"Don't waste your life on trivia, vain and worldly things. Give your life every day, one day at a time, to what really matters."
That is one of the lessons taught by the life of Heather Christensen, 33, the American Fork High School woodwind teacher who died saving the lives of her students, said Elder Bruce C. Hafen of the Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking at funeral services on Saturday at the Alpine Tabernacle in American Fork.
"I bring you the love and deepest sympathy of President Thomas S. Monson and the other General Authorities who asked me to represent them here," said Hafen, noting he had two very personal reasons to speak. Two of his grandchildren are members of the band, and "one of them was sitting right across the aisle" from Christensen the night she attempted to take control of a charter bus carrying band students home from Idaho after the driver is believed to have suffered a medical issue. The only fatality, Christensen was thrown from the bus.
"Her actions protected many young people from injury and even death," Hafen said, noting the American Fork City Council had declared Saturday as Heather Christensen Day in honor of her actions.
"All those whose loved ones were on the bus will feel an everlasting debt of gratitude," Elder Hafen said. "It is as if she gave these kids a second chance to live."
Through her example in life and death, Christensen also taught how to navigate life's temptations, Hafen said.
"Learn from Heather to steer your bus away from the dangers that haunt us on the freeway of life," he said. And as Christensen, "find joy in the success of other people -- what a gift in this competitive society."
Family members remembered Christensen as a woman with a passion for music, movie quotes, world travel, hats, a math whiz who loved to sing and dance and loved warm weather, especially in Hawaii, and never took life too seriously. She was called "self-directed, self-motivated, and naturally driven" and an "educator in the truest sense of the word."
One of the most moving moments from Saturday's service came when the band played as the black casket covered in red roses was rolled from the tabernacle. Uniformed band members, who had occupied choir seats during the service, lined both sides of the walkway from the tabernacle about 100 feet out to the waiting hearse. As the audience stood to watch the casket be wheeled away, music from the band filtered into the tabernacle and many in attendance sobbed openly. Hundreds lined the sidewalk and gathered in the parking lot to watch the family pass between the lines of band members after the casket.
In letters read by family members at the service, Christensen's parents, Kay and Annette Christensen, said her passing left them "sad and incomplete" and said meeting with students the night of the accident was comforting and moving.
"I never had to worry about you doing wrong, even in your teenage years," Christensen's mother wrote. "I know you appreciated life in your own way, briefly yet abundantly."
Family members recalled the time, in her youth, when a curious Christensen set a towel on fire in the bathroom. When she couldn't get the fire out, she quietly exited the bathroom. The family did not learn the bathroom was on fire until the fire alarm went off.
"Let us all press forward and realize we have been in the presence of an angel," said her sister, Kara Higginson. "She will be greatly missed, but she will still be laughing, loving and helping others."
In Memory of Heather Christensen
by her nephew, Nathan Higginson, as read at her funeral:
Amazing people come and go but why must she be one?
The answer is she's needed by our Father and his Son.
She still lives on in all of us, her spirit and her fire.
To live with her eternal family was her one and only desire.
Let's help her reach her goal and live life as we should,
And begin to do as Heather did nothing but good.
She lived a life of service, so angelic, pure and strong,
Never did you find her doing anything in the wrong.
As a person, a friend and nephew, what more could I need?
To live my life as she did, I pray I can, I plead.
The love she had for everyone, so endless and so much,
She had something about her, you could feel with just a touch.
She's now somewhere better, an eternal companion she'll find,
But her friends and her family -- so much she left behind.
We'll remember her as selfless, an angel in and out.
She's walking now in heaven, with that I have no doubt.
Our care for you is endless, our hearts are full of love.
Please stay with us and guide us, and watch us from above.
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