12.30.05
Posted in Memories at 1:10 pm by Jen Parente
Although I didn’t know Lucas well, I always knew how much he meant to Tarlie from the very first time I met her.
Lucas was the first member of the Harris family that I met. It was at the Broome Street apartment on his weekend visits to Manhattan from school. Geez, was that high school for him? He would be sitting on the same stinky old couch, watching the boob tube like the others sucked into whatever crap John found on TV. There were many a Friday/Saturday night that I would walk in and see Lucas sitting in the same spot with his sweet smile. Didn’t get talk to him too often on those visits but got to know him a little more through Tarlie’s stories once she settled in New York. Heard about the steamroller a number of times.
In my mind, Lucas will always have a sweet smile and a voice full of that good ol’ Southern charm 🙂
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Posted in Memories at 12:24 pm by Beth Huber
It has taken me quite a while to post something here and I’m not exactly sure why. I think it’s because I can’t do justice to Lucas and his beautiful family and friends that are suffering his loss.
There are so many things I think of when I think of Lucas but the biggest thing, and my favorite thing, would have to be his smile. That big goofy wonderful grin. He always made me feel at home and safe and comfortable no matter where we were. I could see Lucas at the Harris’ house or in a Tarlie’s apartment in New York City or anywhere and he always made me feel genuinely and completely liked and part of things. That smile made me want to smile; it made me want to crawl inside of his head and his world and figure out the joke or where all the fun was. I always instantly relaxed whenever I saw Lucas. That smile always made me feel that there shouldn’t be any problems in the world. I’ll miss that.
The story I have is a bit silly, but it is one of my strongest memories of Lucas. Tarlie and I were college roommates and once Lucas came to stay with us. Our sorority was having a big party and I also had a friend in town staying with us. After our party, my date and his friends wanted to go out and there wasn’t enough room in the car for all of us. Because I was ridiculous and boy crazy, I ended up going with them and leaving Lucas and my friend alone in a parking lot at a strange school in a strange town (sorry Judi if you are reading this…). My friend told me the next day how Lucas had figured out how to get them home and how he had made the long walk feel fun and safe. The next day I was mortified by my behavior and leaving the two of them. Lucas never made me feel bad about that. I always waited, even years later for him to at least tease me about that night, and he never did. I have always felt I owed him one for taking care of my friend that night.
Tarlie, I’m so glad you did this site. I think it is a beautiful thing and I enjoy reading everyone’s memories of Lucas. This is such a horrible sad time, but I don’t think the end of his life should be marked with just tears. I love seeing this funny silly and real celebration of him.
Lucas to me is strong and caring and sweet and funny. He is kindhearted and warm and fun. He is a good Southern boy who always seemed to respect the people in his life, even the strangers he met on the street. He was always easy to talk to and great to be around. I don’t have a little brother but if I did I would want him to be like Lucas. I am shocked and saddened by Lucas’ death. I was enjoying getting to know the adult he was becoming. I’ll miss that I can’t grow up with Lucas and see where life would’ve taken him. I can only wonder what he would have been like. I’m certain though that he would always have kept that grin.
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12.27.05
Posted in Memories at 5:08 pm by JudiMom
Lucas was a senior when we got to use the new gym for the Christmas Assembly the first time. As usual everybody was hyped up for the Christmas holidays and at Saint James it always began with the Assembly and the afternoon off. Somehow the Seniors always sang “Five Golden rings” when the school sang the “Partridge in a Pear Tree” song. As we were filling into the gym that day.. someone walked up to me with a whole Santa hat and face on not just the hat like most of the people. He walked up, looked me right in the eye and said “Ho …Ho ….Ho. Merrrrry Christmas!!” and walked off. I could not figure out who it was and kept asking everyone who was that. I watched and the Santa sat in the middle of the Seniors and soon took off his face and hat… of course, it was Lucas!! I just kept saying to myself and everyone “I can’t believe I didn’t know who it was!” Here he is leading the seniors that day with “Five Golden Rings” at the top of his lungs and his big smile. I love you, Lucas.
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12.26.05
Posted in Memories at 9:15 pm by Tarlie Harris
As I have said, we were really hyper children, Christmas being no exception. Two memories stick out in my mind from all of our Christmases, and they are both when we were pretty young, it just doesn’t get better than Christmas Eve/day when you are little. I remember Lucas searching the house up and down the week before Chirstmas, snooping in every possible corner (a trait he always possessed) and me running behind him going “stop it, you are going to ruin our Christmas!”.
Without fail Lucas was the first one to wake up on Christmas morning, and then if he wasn’t sleeping in my bed (which he usually was b/c we were so excited we would have to talk ourselves to sleep), he would come and wake me up. This was usually about 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning. Somehow I had enough sense to know that this may not fly with the parents just quite yet, so we would go check out the goods as quiet as we could. We wouldn’t touch anything, we would just run in circles around all of the loot that had appeared under the tree over night. I can remember the feeling like it was yesterday, just on the verge of nausea from so much adrenaline and too little sleep. Still as adults, when I would feel ill in a certain way, I was able to describe it to Lucas perfectly as “that Christmas morning nauseous feeling”. We would then start pestering the rest of the house around 5am. One year, we didn’t make it until the wee hours of the morning. We were stirring around the house at like midnight b/c I had sworn that I had heard bells ringing outside, so I dragged Lucas outside, and then we convinced each other that we saw something “glowing red” in the sky. We laughed about that all the time still, and how silly and out of control we were about Christmas.
My other favorite memory was the year that we wanted one of those battery powered kid sized trucks to drive around. We had been talking about it for months. On Christmas morning, there was no truck, only a note from Santa that said that the trucks were all gone but he hoped this would do: tied to the letter was a red string leading outside to a trampoline. It was the best present we ever got and we jumped on that thing constantly until I went to college. I sure did miss him yesterday.
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Posted in Memories at 12:34 am by Kelley
Merry Christmas Lucas! I want you to know that I love you very much and you will always be with me no matter what. Foxy and I miss you so much!
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12.25.05
Posted in Memories at 3:23 pm by abojr
Merry Christmas buddy!
You will always be with me. I love you man.
Thanks Tarlie and everyone else for making this site possible. It helps a lot.
Alan
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12.20.05
Posted in Memories at 7:07 pm by will meacham
Like everyone else losing Lucas has been hard for me to accept. Most of my memories of Lucas are when he was age 12-16. I spent alot of time at the Harris’ house and became close with the whole family but with Lucas he and my brother were the same age yet Lucas was so different. Little brothers can always seem annoying but with Lucas he always made me laugh and was fun to have around. I have several memories of Lucas tyring to spy on or bother Tarlie and I while we were hanging out or watching movies. Of course this didn’t bother me that much but would make Tarlie mad as hell. I always got a kick out of it because my brother would do the same thing and make me mad but with Lucas it was just funny.
Lucas also had a nack to fix anything it seemed. I had an old go-cart that had not run in 2-3 years and one day Lucas was over at my house and spotted it. He was already probably to big for the thing but asked what I was going to do with it. It was only collecting leaves at my house so I gave it to Lucas. I can’t recall the time frame it took him to get it running but one day I was over at his house and there it was painted blue and running like a champ. Of course being the kid I am we took turns riding that thing in the fields that used to be around the house having the best time.
Over the years I would run into Lucas at the strangest places and it never failed every concert especially Widespread in Birmingham we would somehow find each other. Then about 2 years ago we ran into each other at a gas station down from my house and exchanged numbers. Soon after that I got a call from Lucas saying he was now a real estate agent and with me being in the insurance business we were able to refer clients to each other quite a few times over the following months. I am glad that our paths crossed like that because I always considered Lucas to be my other little brother and was enjoying trying to help him in his new business venture any way I could.
I’ve enjoyed reading every ones memories. I’m just very thankful I knew Lucas and know he is always looking over us. I miss you my other little brother.
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12.19.05
Posted in Memories at 2:33 pm by Tarlie Harris
Since Lucas and I were not even two years apart, most of my childhood memories inlcude him in them somewhere. He was so much better that I am at remembering the smallest of details of being kids and would always remind me of the silliest things that we had done as children. I can’t believe that he isn’t here to help me remember.
I can’t begin to think of childhood without first thinking of our summers in Orlando. Our grandparents always had a huge RV and would take Lucas and I for a week or two every summer and we would drive down to Orlando and stay in the resort that they had a place in. We would play UNO the entire way down with grandmother while Popaw was driving. He definitely had a temper and we were always pushing him to the limit with our constant sense of being in a hurry! We just wanted to get there! We would stop at rest stations and eat whatever they had packed for us, I think we complained about most of the food the whole time. Lucas was always the pickiest eater, he would eat hot dogs, waffles, biscuits with grape jelly and chef boyardee ravioli. That was it!
I remember that as soon as we drove up in the driveway at the resort Lucas and I would start saying “when are we going to disney world?! come on, we don’t need to unpack, let’s just go now!” We were SO hyper about it! We really couldn’t fathom what would take our grandparents so long to get ready to go. And if they decided we weren’t going till the next day, we could absolutely freak out. We were not mellow children. I really don’t know how our grandparents handled it! We would always stay in Disney World the ENTIRE day, never tiring, until the 10pm fireworks, after we had ridden thunder mountain as many times as possible. I would never ride space mountain, but I remember that Lucas did, he wasn’t too scared, he loved it and would always try to get me on, but I never did ride it with him. One year, we convinced my grandmother that I had “hurt my ankle” and therefore it was necessary for her to push BOTH of us around in the same wheelchair all over Disney World! We thought that was so hilarious! I don’t think we felt at all guilty either.
When we weren’t actually in Disney World, we would roam all over the resort on the three wheeled bike that they had for us. One of us driving and one of us in the big basket in the back. We would go to the clubhouse and play shuffleboard and putt-putt golf and swim and we would ride all around the place because there were canals throughout the whole thing so we liked riding over the bridges. And of coarse Lucas liked getting as close into the canals as possible. One time he caught a baby alligator, i am not making this up. He was so much more daring than me, I was always 10 steps behind going “Lucas! Don’t do that!” But of course, my grandad thought catching the alligator was pretty damn funny! I can’t imagine what I would have been like down there without Lucas always stirring up trouble for us to get into. We wouldn’t even wear shoes unless we were forced to when we were actually in Disney World. They always tried to talk us into Epcot Center, which we were totally opposed to, how boring! But they did take us down to Busch Gardens one year too, where there were a lot more roller coasters, I remember I actually started getting some courage by then and we rode em all together.
We got to ride an elephant! I remember we kept standing in line and then passing up our turn because we figured out that we wouldn’t be in the very front, and of course we had to be in the front, so the whole process was about 10 times longer than it needed to be, but we did it! And of course Lucas had to convince me to do this in the first place because I was too scared.
We got our faces painted!
Us on the three wheeled bike, this was probably one of the last years that Gabe came down with us, so Lucas wasn’t driving ME around in the basket like a madman quite yet.
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12.15.05
Posted in Memories at 7:48 pm by JudiMom
The whole nite-nite story really starts when Jerry was a baby. The very original nite-nite was his. Grandmother gave it to Chance when he was born, and there were two of them. One almost worn out from Jerry and one new thick one with lots of stitching. The older one was stored away shortly after Gabe was born and was replaced in Chance’s mind with a twin size pooh-bear quilt to go on his big boy bed. And Gabe got a crib size pooh-bear quilt plus the thick crib size silky quilt (just slightly more worn than when Chance was a baby).
Then we move to Atlanta, the boys got the bunk beds and Chance and Gabe’s nite-nite became yellow and white checked cotton quilts. The baby crib size blankets got put aways for next baby. Chance and Gabe both kept their yellow quilts around for a long time but they became ragged and they dissapeared while we still lived in Millbrook.
Tarlie was born in 1978 in Atlanta and out came the one silky blanket, and a crib size pooh-bear, and a new crib size girly blanket that had a little baby giraffe with it. The silky blanket was the standard on the floor spot for the baby because it was so soft but heavy and did wrinkle up as she wiggled around. I got out the older silky one that was very thin and flimsy to cover her with and that became her permanent nite-nite until it disappeared mysteriously on a Grandmother visit to Montgomery.
Then Lucas was born… Tarlie kept the thin silky nite-nite and her backup was the giraffe crib size, Lucas attached to the thick one with lots of stitching that had been through the three older children and was rather worn in. He always has two backups, the crib size pooh bear and the twin size pooh bear.
By the time Lucas was eight 1988 the nite-nite was on its last legs. See picture below. Grand mother made him a replacement that he attached to very quickly and kept the Pooh’s as backups.
The new one was soft and silky but wore out quickly. Lucas went to the crib size Pooh as backup #1. It wore out as he went to Lawrenceville, I think, and he moved on to the twin size pooh whch I kept sewing up as it became more and more ragged. I learned to put it inside a pillow case to wash it and never asked if I could because he would say no. Tarlie has his Pooh nite-nite now. I know she will keep it safe for him.
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12.14.05
Posted in Memories at 5:21 pm by Kelley
Lucas loved Bear and Foxy so much so I thought that I would post a picture of them together. I have Foxy with me in Montgomery and she is still happy and fat! Travis found a home for Bear. Thank you Trav. 
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