| 3.20.2003
Keith R. Lapierre, 29; set spiritual course
Sarah Rose Lapierre, a cute baby girl weighing 6 pounds, 12 ounces, was
born March 3 in Worcester Memorial Hospital.
It's a safe bet that her father, Keith R. Lapierre, would have been on
cloud nine.
"He would be so thrilled," Keith's mother said the next day.
"I'll never forget when Ryan was born, he called us on a cell phone.
He said, 'Pop, it's a boy.' "
The big extended family that Keith, 29, of Worcester, leaves behind includes
his wife, Tammy; his parents, Karen and Richard Lapierre, of Oxford, Mass.;
his son, Ryan, 22 months; and now little Sarah Rose.
Sarah takes her middle name from her great grandmother, Rose MacKay.
"She is absolutely beautiful. We were there like minutes after she
was born," Karen Lapierre said.
"We're crying tears of joy," Richard said.
By all accounts, Keith Lapierre was curious and animated, with an interest
in things that could empty a library, and a smile that could brighten
a room.
He was close to his family. He and his mother worked together at the
A.G. Edwards branch in Worcester, where he was a stockbroker and she is
a financial assistant.
When he wasn't spending his lunch hour working out with a friend at the
gym, Keith and his mother would brown-bag it together in Worcester Common
Park.
A year ago, he left A.G. Edwards and returned to school. He earned a
teaching certificate and, in December, started working as a substitute
teacher at Worcester's Accelerated Learning Lab.
Keith made the career change in part because he wanted to have the same
school vacations and holidays as Tammy, a kindergarten teacher.
Another big reason, Karen Lapierre said, was that Keith was a spiritual
person who didn't find work as a stockbroker fulfilling. She said a priest
in his parish, Father Joseph Coonan, called Keith "a 90-year-old
guru."
"In the brokerage," she said, "it was always business."
Keith Lapierre was an eclectic music fan. He had played high school baseball
and football, served in the Marine Corps Reserve, and was still intrigued
by life's possibilities.
A month before he died, he bought himself an electric guitar and began
taking lessons. "He said he did not want to go through life saying,
'I should have done this, I should have done that,' " his mother
said.
-- John Castellucci
Share
your thoughts and condolences for all of those lost
|
