Remembering Lucy: What loved ones said about the Lourdes student who died in boat crash

Laughs. Smiles. Hugs. A bit of a prankster. And a light in the life of everyone who knew her.

That’s how people described Lucy.

On Monday, family, friends and classmates, all wearing different shades of blue, gathered inside Church of the Epiphany to remember Luciana “Lucy” Fernandez. The 17-year-old Our Lady of Lourdes Academy senior died in a Labor Day weekend boat crash off the Florida Keys that injured several others.

As her school choir sang, the funeral Mass at the South Miami area church overflowed with students, teachers and others from Lourdes, Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart, Christopher Columbus and Belen, which had a school bus parked outside. Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Núñez and Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava were also at the church at 8235 SW 57th Ave.

It was so sweltering inside that Pastor Jose Alvarez told the crowd: “I gotta tell ya, you gotta have real love to stand el calor que esta aquí adentro (the heat that’s inside here). That’s what love is. Sacrifice.” Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said they treated eight pediatric patients at the church, with two taken to the hospital.

Everyone inside was there to remember Lucy, whom her grandmother called the “Lucecita de mi vida” (the light of my life).

Lucy was born the night Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Miami-Dade in August 2005. Power outages caused by the storm had spread to the hospital, recalled Arturo Fernandez, Lucy’s uncle and godfather.

“Because Lucy is light and love at her core, it came as no surprise the moment Lucy was born, the power returned and all the lights came back on,” Fernandez said at the service. “Doctors announced in excitement, and maybe a little shock, ‘Oh Lord, she has brought light back into this world.’ It’s only fitting that she did that as her name, Luciana, means light.”

Her friends and loved ones spoke about Lucy’s sweet heart, her love for the movie “Mamma Mia,” her sense of humor, how she wanted to travel the world.

“She was always there when you needed a helping hand or a joke ... with a trademark laugh I can still hear,” a close friend said at the service.

One of the memories shared during the service was how Lucy’s friends threw her a surprise birthday party, except, it wasn’t really a surprise. Lucy knew every detail of the party and had even practiced her “surprise” reaction the night before, drawing laughs from the crying crowd inside the church.

Lucy loved being in the water, her uncle said. She was also trying to find her passion in life. Initially, she wanted to be a lawyer. But then she went to her dad’s office and “thought it was the most boring thing she had ever endured in her life,” Fernandez said. She was thinking of pursuing physical therapy.

In her college essay, Lucy wrote that since she was born, she was “destined to be the bringer of light,” one of her teachers said. Those who knew her said she lived up to representing what love, light and being a follower of Christ meant.

“Lucy is with us,” her Uncle Arturo said, “and will always be with us.”

To help

Lucy’s family is working with Lourdes to set up a scholarship. So far, a GoFundMe page for the scholarship has raised more than $550,000.