CCHS senior Maisey O’Donnell remembered as ‘in full bloom’
“The world now knows what a beautiful individual she was and how very much we loved her.”
When Maisey O’Donnell’s parents moved to Acton, they put their daughter into the town soccer program.
It was soon clear that young Maisey had other interests.
“She was more likely to be found on the sidelines asking if she could pet someone’s dog, or doing walkovers and handsprings,” her mother fondly recalled.
Eventually, Maisey found her place in athletics as a champion gymnast and diver, even as she had her place in the world as a beloved daughter, sister, and friend.
Her parents, Elizabeth and Christoph, addressed a sea of mourners at her Acton Center funeral on Saturday. Their words were touched with sorrow and pride as they spoke of Maisey, 18, whose life ended along with those of classmates Jimmy McIntosh, 18, and Hannah Wasserman, 17, after an April 21 highway accident.
Maisey, her mother said, had shown grace, determination, character, optimism. She had been “in full bloom.”
“If there is anything that I’m grateful for,” she told those gathered at St. Bernard’s Church at Holy Family Parish, “it is that the world now knows what a beautiful individual she was and how very much we loved her.”
Moments of perfection
Memories of Maisey, 18, inspired prayer not only at St. Bernard’s but for those in overflow seating at nearby First Parish Church, which was also adorned for the occasion with pink and white blossoms.
In her eulogy, Elizabeth looked back to an evening two weeks before Maisey’s death. Parents and daughters were intent on their own tasks — study, work — each focused, but as a family, together. Everyone was purposeful and happy.
The moment, she said, was her version of perfection.
“I remember looking at Maisey and thinking how beautiful she was,” she said. “At that time, and frankly many times before, I felt that my life was too good to be true.”
She remembered a quote from Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It” that warns that “life is not a work of art” and a perfect moment cannot last.
The quote hung on her wall in college, she said.
On Saturday, it marked the funeral program’s back page.
Girl dad
Christoph O’Donnell called himself “a proud girl dad.” He said young Maisey loved being tossed in the air and riding on his shoulders.
As she got older, she confounded her father with her freewheeling habits.
Christoph drew laughs from an otherwise somber crowd when he described his shock at his daughter eating unwashed grapes out of the refrigerator. He recalled finding half-finished iced coffees and gum in her room. He would shake his head, smile, recycle the cups, toss the gum.
“I secretly loved that she was messy,” Christoph said. “She was beautiful and messy at the same time, and it was just so endearing… Truth be told, I actually loved picking up after her.”
Father and daughter shared golden hours on their road and plane trips to her many meets, he said: “We’d drive down the highway listening to music and just enjoy each other’s company — many times, in blissful silence.”
He loved to make her laugh, and “after a good laugh, I would sometimes catch myself looking at her and just marvel at the woman she’d become,” he said.
Maisey’s younger sister, Emmy, came forward before her parents spoke.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things,” she read from 1 Corinthians. “Love never fails.”
Grappling with loss
During the service, which was also presented via livestream, ushers distributed paper fans to help First Parish guests stay cool. Some balanced tear-soaked tissues in one hand and a fan in the other.
At Holy Family, Deacon Chuck Clough struggled for composure as he spoke of Maisey.
“Now she has finished this life and is embarking upon another in the hands of the Lord,” he said, “except [I] think she has always been in the hands of the Lord, and I know He has watched everything she’s done.”
Multiple speakers praised Maisey for having chosen to be an organ donor, allowing her body to help others.
Afterward, mourners walked to Nosh by Acton Market for a reception — so many that police blocked part of Main Street. Some paused to hug each other in Monument Square. The usual Saturday bustle went quiet.
Jimmy McIntosh’s funeral is scheduled for Monday. Hannah Wasserman’s family has said her memorial service would be private.
