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15 November 2009: We have just received word of the death of our dear classmate Lucia Krosnowski.
Lucia had earned her Masters degree in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Tech. She moved to Louisiana in the late 1980s and worked for Domino Sugar. She met her husband, Tommy Avants, in New Orleans in 1989. They moved to Winston-Salem, NC in 1990 and were married in 1991. After their divorce in 1999, Lucia moved back to her beloved Maringá. In 2005 she returned to the United States. She was living in the Merritt Island-Cocoa Beach area of Florida when she was struck and killed by a moving vehicle on a busy highway in September of that year.
Lucia's ashes were buried in Maringá, alongside the remains of her mother and father.
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Dan Waters (1973)
Lucia was a bridge who got me over some troubled and lonely times at Graded. She pushed me hard -- out of my laziness (by being mercilessly competitive) and out of my shyness (by being hilariously and imperiously demanding).The only child of working parents who had her late in life, Lucia felt both neglected and smothered. I, too, was overprotected, but Lucia rebelled against her cocoon whereas I embraced mine. It didn't matter: we had circumstances in common, both being significantly younger than most of our class. This brought us close.
Lucia and I telephoned each other almost every afternoon (heavy black phones with springy cords!) and chatted for hours. We exchanged notes in school -- not just notes, but a shared spiral notebook we passed back and forth between classes so as not to lose our immortal correspondence (both of us were going to be famous) and also not to arouse the suspicion of teachers.
During those long June-to-August vacations we would trade voluminous letters. Lucia's wild scribble covered wads of paper, which came jammed into yellow-and-green envelopes. She wrote the way she spoke: breathless, sarcastic, run-on sentences that never looked back. Her letters were always signed "Love, Lovely Lucia" -- which became, over time, "L[3]" for short. I teased her by spelling her name "Luxa," which is how her mother pronounced it.
Lucia had a completely separate life outside Graded. Where I stayed at school for drama club and debate, she went home to Brazilian friends and boyfriends I never met, many older than herself. She expected me to remember all their nicknames so she could gossip about them. It was as if she were playing the part of an older person in the outside world, but confessing to me that it was all a joke.
Lucia lived in a cramped fourth-floor apartment on Avenida Angélica, off Rua Augusta, which she shared with her mother. (There was also a long-suffering maid whom they both tormented.) Lucia's parents always seemed to be more business partners than husband-and-wife, and her father spent a lot of time in Maringá. I met him only once, briefly -- a rather oblivious old man who had materialized solely to celebrate Lucia's 16th birthday.
Once, Lucia beguiled some young record-store salesclerk into lending her some brand-new records for me to tape for a party she was going to give. I don't recall actually being invited to her parties -- it was understood that these were a social obligation and not particularly fun -- but I felt honored to be included in her preparations, part of her entourage. My mom thought Lucia's capriciousness was funny, and used it as an opportunity to teach me one of her characteristically puzzling life lessons ("Always treat women the way you would treat a cat--").
We lost touch soon after I left for college, and I have no way to understand how Lucia ended as she did. In my senior-year Aquila (it's here in front of me tonight) she wrote: "I once had a dream, and in the dream you were simply Danny and I was chubby Luxa with the long hair and big mouth. We're going to live on memories, so treasure them, Danny. Love forever, always, Lucia." Then: "Sorry for being mushy, but true! I'm just in a mushy phase -- não ligue!"
I want to believe that she never lost those memories, and that they were a comfort to her when she needed them most.
Sharon Crane (1973)
That was beautiful Dan. It is sad to see how many of our friends we have lost. You especially.Rogerio Parreira (1973)
Dan,
That was well said. Lucia and I often sat on the bus going home together and would talk. She attempted albeit unsuccessfully to pull me out of my shell. I will always cherish those memories, her vibrancy and vitality. What an unfortunate end to a troubled soul.
Roger