My friend Celeste Sullivan was killed when she was run over by a bus. The bus driver, a good and responsible man with a flawless driving record, had a heart attack. His bus jumped the curb, jumped the island and killed her as she waited for another bus. She was 54.
This is the remembrance I wrote of her on the day of her memorial service. Below that, you will find the article from the newspaper about her death and her obituary from the Providence Journal.
I went to the memorial service for Celeste today. It was held at Brown University's Manning Chapel; a nice, plain space. There was an altar and lots of flowers; in the warmth of the summer afternoon, one could really smell the flowers. We were halfway through the service before I realized that the vase in the center of the altar was actually the urn with her ashes.
Celeste lived in my house for two years. Yehuda knew her from the neighborhood and so when she lost her lodgings, he asked me if we could let her rent the third floor. She was quiet, small, slender and quick as a little bird. She had converted to Islam so sometimes, when we were eating something she could eat, she'd eat with us. When we celebrated Passover, she came representing the pharoah. It was our little joke.
She finished writing her dissertation while she was living with us but I had no sense of her as a scholar. She got her degree in linguistic anthropology and wrote about the relationships between Urdu, Arabic and two other languages spoken in Pakistan. What we studied was so far apart from each other, our interactions were entirely on the daily human level. You know some people are brilliant because they are snobs, or they are self-conscious about their intellects or they are so accustomed to being set apart by their intellects that it shows immediately. Celeste was so humble, so simple in her ways, that you had no sense of her intellect.
I found out today that she was brilliant. I knew that she was the daughter of an English professor; she had given us a book he'd written on Emily Dickinson. But we didn't know that she'd gotten her undergraduate degree in Egyptology and could read hieroglyphics. I knew she spoke Urdu because she'd married a Pakistani half her age while she was in Pakistan doing her research, and she spent the next five years trying to get him into this country. Every Sunday morning, she'd stand in my kitchen (where she got the best reception for her phone), shouting into the phone in Urdu. After she got a part-time job teaching at UMass Dartmouth, she moved to New Bedford but kept my address as her permanent address while she dealt with immigration. She finally got her husband into the U.S., He is a handsome fellow--Bollywood movie star handsome. He was younger than her children. Her children were furious at him; they thought he'd married her just to get into the country and get his green card. The irony for me is that his Green card came less than a month ago. I last saw her--and met him for the first time--three weeks ago Tuesday, when they came to get the green card. She used to tell me that they just didn't understand but she told only her oldest son that her husband was now in the states; she figured that she'd tell the rest of them when he had settled in. They couldn't even live together--she'd gotten him a job here in Providence and she was living in New Bedford where she was working. They left his name off of the obituary; she would have been upset by that.
She was a bit eccentric but more than that she was just a free spirit and a deeply good and kind person. She'd had four children by three different fathers, only the first of which she'd been married to, and she raised those kids on her own. Her first husband and the lover who followed him were both black men, and her children are gorgeous, and they all exactly look like her. Her black lovers were Rastafarian and the boys both have long dreadlocks. Once when we were talking about her children, she described raising them alone as a single mother. That must have been tough, I said. She replied that it was but she had these three wonderful children to show for it so she didn't mind at all. One of her children, Mary--her older daughter--was by a white man and she is a a blond version of her siblings. Mary married the youngest son of our across-the-street neighbor Lisa; thus they became good friends. Lisa gave Celeste a child's bicycle--one that a 12 year-old could ride. She was so small and slender that it suited her perfectly. I will always think of her riding that little bike.
It is so ironic that on that rare occasion that she rode the bus, a bus would jump a curb and and an island to kill her. I still can't get my brain around it.
As artist Christopher Marley said, "Success is living your own life in your own way." And the Dalai Lama says that "Happiness is the purpose of life." By any measure, she was a great success.
I skipped the reception after the service. The humidity had given me a headache and I just didn't feel like being sociable. I spoke to her children at the service but slipped away right afterwards. Sometimes sociability is too much to ask.
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http://www.heraldnews.com/
Woman hit by bus was UMD professor
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth colleagues described Celeste Sullivan, the woman struck and killed by a bus in New Bedford Tuesday, as charismatic, charming, dedicated and insightful. Sullivan joined the Sociology, Anthropology, and Crime and Justice Studies program as a part-time faculty last year.
“For someone I knew so briefly, she made an extraordinarily strong impression,” said Larry Miller, the acting department chair. She was enthusiastic and a gifted teacher, very popular with students and someone whose thoughts he found himself referring to regularly, he said.
Sullivan, a 54-year-old from New Bedford, was hit by an SRTA commuter bus Tuesday morning after 60-year-old driver David Rebello apparently began suffering chest pains. She had been waiting for a bus at the city’s main terminal when the bus crossed a median and hit her. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The District Attorney’s Office was still investigating the incident on Wednesday.
Sullivan was not going to return to UMass Dartmouth this fall because of personnel cuts, Miller said, but he was planning on bringing her back for the spring 2010 semester. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Worcester State College and graduated with a doctorate degree in anthropology from Brown University in 2005, he said. She also received a Fulbright Scholarship for research in Pakistan.
“It’s a great, great, great loss,” said Ida Almeida, the department secretary and one of few colleagues who got to know her well during her year at the university. “I can’t even put my head around it.”
Almeida also described Sullivan as having a “big impact” during her short tenure.
Sullivan didn’t have a driver’s license and often walked or rode her bicycle to get around, she said. Almeida believed Sullivan may have been on her way to the University of Rhode Island for an interview when she was hit.
“It’s just the saddest thing,” she said. “She was very into her work, very into teaching.”
Miller appreciated the opportunity to remember Sullivan and tell a little bit about her. “I cannot say enough about what a wonderful teacher she was. She was a rare talent.”
E-mail Grant Welker at gwelker@heraldnews.com.
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Obit from the Providence Journal
SULLIVAN, DR. CELESTE MARIE, 54, of New Bedford, MA, died Tuesday, July 21st from injuries sustained in a tragic accident. She leaves two sons, Bernard Henson and Obasi Osborne; and two daughters, Maye Osborne and Mary Sullivan Niebles; her sister, Claudia Salloom and her niece Anne Salloom.
She was born April 1, 1955 in Boston, the daughter of Dr. William L. and Carol (Saurwein) Sullivan. Celeste was a 1970 graduate of Windsor Mountain High School, earned her BA from Worcester State, her Masters Degree in Egyptology, and in 2005 her Ph.D. in Linguistic Anthropology, with a specialty in Urdu studies, from Brown University. Celeste will be remembered as a unique and gifted person. She had the ability to repair a diesel engine, navigate a yacht or translate the hieroglyphics on Ramses tomb. At the time of her death, she was in the process of turning her doctoral thesis into a book. She was a loving mother, caring friend and a truly amazing woman whose zest for life had no boundaries. The happiest time of her life was assisting her daughter Maye in the planning of her wedding.
A Memorial Service will be held, Wednesday, July 29th at 4:00 PM in the Manning Chapel at Brown University. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the charity of the donor's choice. O'CONNOR BROTHERS FUNERAL HOME, 592 Park Avenue, Worcester, is directing arrangements. oconnorbrothers.com
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