Funeral for Mary Read

WSLS NewsChannel 10
Published: April 25, 2007

FAIRFAX STATION, VA - When Mary Read's family cleaned out her dorm room at Virginia Tech last week, they found a little red notebook filled with her favorite quotations.

Read, a freshman who was shot and killed as she sat in French class, began filling the notebook three years ago. Her first quote made perfect sense to anyone familiar with her infectious smile:

"Never stop smiling, because you'll never know who is falling in love with it."

Two months before her death, she made her final entry:
"When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive... forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future."

"I think it's her message for us, and I think we all need (to hear) it right now," her father, Peter Read, told friends and relatives who gathered for her funeral Tuesday at St. Mary of Sorrows Catholic Church in Fairfax Station.

Less than two weeks after the massacre that took the life of Read and 32 of her classmates, calls for forgiveness for the killer are rare. But Mary Read believed in forgiveness, her father said, as he read from her little red book.

"That's the heart of the gospel message Mary followed," he said.

Read, 19, was a bubbly force who brightened rooms with her presence, friends said.

At Virginia Tech, she was actively involved with Campus Crusade for Christ and had applied to lead a Bible study group. She loved kids and planned to become an elementary school teacher.

At Annandale High School, she played lacrosse and was a member of the color guard and the French club. Her senior year, she was president of the marching band and a finalist for homecoming queen. She won the "best smile" award in band running away her senior year.

Her effect on people was evident by the turnout at her funeral. The 800-person church was filled nearly to capacity.

Hundreds more lined neighborhood streets between the church and the cemetery in Annandale, wearing Annandale red and Virginia Tech maroon and burnt orange, many wiping away tears.

The Annandale band, in which she had played clarinet for four years, played "Amazing Grace" while her pallbearers carried her coffin to her final resting spot.

Her coffin was white. Friends and family used multi-colored markers to cover it with dozens of messages, like the back pages of a popular kid's yearbook on the last day of school.
"Je t'adore mon amie. Your smile will have my heart forever," wrote a member of the French club.

"The place you filled in everyone's heart will never be empty, but instead full of the joy you unknowingly brought others. We all love you, Mary," wrote another.

"I'll always remember that smile, how compassionate she was, and full of joy," Annandale band director Jack Elgin said after the service.

As he spoke, a sobbing student approached him and gave him a big bear hug.

"That's why I never want to see you guys go," he told her, as she wiped back tears. "I never know what's going to happen to you once you leave."

Sean Mussenden is a national correspondent in Media General News Service's Washington bureau. He can be reached at 202-662-7668 or