Kerry Fitzsimons, Marist senior, remembered

A busload of students from upstate Marist College came to Dix Hills on Friday to bid farewell to Kerry Fitzsimons, a 21-year-old senior from Commack who died in a house fire off campus last weekend.

An estimated 100 students helped fill St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church and heard the Rev. Richard LaMorte, chaplain at the Poughkeepsie college, deliver a message aimed at them.

"For 18- to 20-year-olds, they've never seen death," LaMorte said afterward.

"Maybe a grandmother or grandfather, but for them to lose one of their own, it blows their mind," he said. "The one thing that it does do is give them a sense of how important individual people are, and how unique they are."

Fitzsimons fit that bill. People first noticed her outward beauty, then came to admire her inner spirit and creativity, said LaMorte, who knew Fitzsimons as a familiar face at the college chapel and through his campus ministry.

She was one of three people killed a week ago when fire swept through the off-campus Poughkeepsie home rented by six Marist students, authorities said. Also killed were Eva Block, 21, of Woodbridge, Conn., a senior, and Kevin Johnson, of New Canaan, Conn., also 21 and a former student. Four others escaped the fire by jumping from windows.

At a Wednesday memorial service at the school, college president Dennis J. Murray said the Marist family was "heartbroken" by the tragedy.

"We have lost three of our best in the prime of their lives -- young adults full of promise, hope and love," Murray said in a statement.

Fitzsimons' mother, Maryanne, called it "a horrible loss" after the funeral Friday.

"All of them are good kids. My heart breaks for all of them," said Maryanne Fitzsimons, 49, of Commack.

LaMorte said the Marist memorial service had to be moved to the school gymnasium to accommodate about 2,500 mourners.

The chaplain, who offered the funeral Mass on Friday, said he tried to get family, friends and students to move past the loss and remember Fitzsimons' heartfelt pursuits, from the guitar she loved to play to her hope to help heal cancer patients by becoming a physician's assistant.

"That's the spirit God hard-wired into us," LaMorte said.

Maryanne Fitzsimons said her daughter was "sweet and funny," with a passion for music. She worked in a music store when she was younger and at an environmental center upstate.