When Harper Moyski’s preschool teacher first asked her name, she hardly looked up from her coloring before replying: “Badass.”
It was the kind of spark her family said defined her — a flash of humor and confidence that they, and hundreds of mourners at the Lake Harriet Band Shell on Sunday, remembered as her special light.
Green and blue ribbons, representing the Catholic school’s colors, fluttered from the benches Sunday as families and neighbors filled the rows of seats. Many wore the same Annunciation T-shirts they had worn days earlier at the funeral of 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel, who also died in the shooting.
The memorial was open to “all who loved” Harper and who hoped to bring “the kind of joy Harper brought into the world.”
Before the service began, a volunteer moved through the crowd, handing stuffed animals to children as soft music played from the speakers. At the front of the bandshell, poster-board collages showed Harper’s short life in snapshots — wide, laughing smiles; days at school; family adventures.
Among the mourners were Gov. Tim Walz, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, seated quietly among families in a crowd that stretched across the bandshell plaza. But the focus of the afternoon was on Harper herself, and the light she carried.
Pastor Tom Hurley of Old St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago led the service, offering prayers for Harper’s family, the Annunciation community and the city of Minneapolis.
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