01.17.06

Crazy Bills Fireworks!

Posted in Memories at 1:09 pm by Tarlie Harris

Rob and I were recently driving around the midwest and I kept seeing fireworks trailers. I had forgotton how much those *Crazy Bills Fireworks* trailers remind me of Lucas. When we were little, he was OBSESSED with fireworks. I don’t know if that is just a boy thing, especially because Gabe and Chance seemed to like them a lot also or what, but he would go nuts to go to those trailers and buy fireworks. Especially if we were with my grandparents, I guess they were more easily pestered into it and I also think both grandads thought it was pretty funny.
Anyways, my favorite fireworks memory is this one time that the Stanfords took all of us kids (me, lucas, stacie, stefanie and toby) to Crazy Bills. I think I was about 8 and Lucas was 6. We all piled into their station wagon to make the trip. We spent a long time in the trailer, running around, picking out the craziest looking things we could find, and then buying as much as we could. About half way back home, the Stanford kids are still jabbering away, and I start thinking…hmmm…this is still too quiet, where is Lucas?? I go into an absolute panic as I realize that Lucas is most definitely NOT in the car. I notify Glen and Glenda, and they kind of chuckle as they go to turn the car around. By the time we pull into the parking lot, I am in tears, I can’t believe that we have forgotten him there, he is going to be so scared etc…..we go back into the fireworks trailer and of course, Lucas could not have cared less that we had all been gone for at least 15 minutes – more time in the fireworks store for him! He is sitting on the fold-up chair right by the cash register, I guess the owners had told him to sit down and wait for us, with all of his firework loot in his hands ready for purchase and keeping all the staff highly entertained. I guess Glen and Glenda knew that would be the case, because they just laughed, and I just tried to calm down and not worry so much.
The Stanfords were our closest childhood friends, we moved away from them when I was 10 and Lucas was 8 and I rarely saw them after that age. But of course Lucas, being Lucas, always knew what they were up to. Sadly, Toby was killed in a car accident in April 2005. Lucas was in NYC when he found out and we were shocked. Lucas went to the funeral and told me it was one of the saddest things he had ever seen, he just had no idea what to say to Stacie and Stefanie. My love goes out to his family. Maybe Lucas and Toby are somewhere blowing up fireworks together.

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01.10.06

Sweet Luke!

Posted in Memories at 7:30 pm by Kelley

Lucas was not only my boyfriend…..he was my best friend! He had a contagious smile that could get anyone through the day. Lucas had the biggest heart of anyone that I have ever met. He had the ability to brighten anyones day no matter how bad of a mood they were in. All he had to do was bust out his famous laugh and everything was automatically better. I have so many fun memories of Lucas that I cannot pinpoint just one. The memory that stands out the most was his love for Pops. In Milbrook, Pops left his motorized scooter wheelchair and Lucas would zip around on that silly thing and chase Foxy and Bear around the house. Judy mom would come every Wednesday and clean and sometimes I would help her. He would sometimes follow us around on the device and ask what we were doing and be really happy that he did not have to do any deep cleaning. I think that the cleaning days were his favorite because he would get to spend quality time with his mom.

I also remember his tumbling abilities. He would do front flips on any piece of furniture that was padded. I guess he learned that at the Armory. ( Lauren I know that you know what I am talking about) 🙂 Who could ever forget his infamous night night blanket and his love for Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, Ben Harper, Clarence Carter, and the movie Crossroads with the guy from the karate kid in it. I think I had to watch that movie about seven or eight times.

Lucas was such an easygoing guy. This was very apparent in the way that he dressed. He could make mismatched and hand me down clothes even look good! When we went to New York on his birthday to visit Tarlie and Rob we went shopping and Tarlie and I wanted to get him a shirt. He was so mad about the prices and told us that Mr. Harris, Gabe, and Chance’s cloothes were just fine. He was whining one day because Tarlie and I wanted to site see and all Tarlie had to say was the magic word……barbecue and his worries were over.
Lucas I want to thank you for loving me and always making me smile! I hope that you are happy and hanging out with Pops. You will always be with me every where I go and I will always love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Lucas, Tarlie, Gabe and Chance

Posted in Memories at 9:54 am by Miwako

Hi, Tarlie. I hope you remember me, Miwako who was an exchange student from Japan and stayed in your place during the year 1992-1993.
I received the email from JudiMom today and be informed about this site.
As we all know, Lucas had a nice smile, sense of humor and warm heart.
To me, Lucas is only a 12-year-old boy. Thank you for you website, I had a chance to see many photos of grown-up Lucas. He sure is very handsome young man.
You should be proud of your brother.
In my days in Montgomery, I and Lucas often had a nice talk. He was sometimes my English teacher.
I guess I may have some story about him that you do not know.

Lucas: Isn’t that Tarlie an unusual name?
Miwako: I am not sure. But maybe. I never heard of the name “Tarlie” before.
Lucas: Yes! It is very rare name, so as Chance and Gabe. I think their names are cool.
Miwako: How about “Lucas”?
Lucas: How about “Miwako” in Japan?
We both laughed each other. He also told me that his full name was “John Lucas”.

Tarlie, Lucas, your younger brother was very proud of you and your big brothers.
He was a very good boy.

I will try to visit the site to share the good memory of Lucas.

Miwako

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01.02.06

Time goes by

Posted in Memories at 1:24 pm by JudiMom

My child, my sweet son, my baby. I t has been 5 months to the day. I cry every day. I don’t know why, but I know you did not want us to linger in sorrow, even though we still do. You loved life, friends, family, fun, dogs, football, dancing, singing and laughing. I don’t understand how you think we can go on with those things without you, but we must. I wake each day missing you and wishing I could change what I said, thought or did but you are still gone no matter what fantasy I have in my head. Each joy I have in life, I owe to you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for being my child, I so wish you were still here for me to take care of. But you are not. I love you, as you are now. Please.. love, me, I did the best I could do. I love you, Lucas…….mom

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12.30.05

Sweet Lucas

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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Lucas

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

Christmas Assembly 1997 At Saint James

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

Christmas Memories

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.