“Choose forgiveness, not vengeance,” urged the priest presiding over a funeral Mass Saturday for University of Virginia lacrosse player Yeardley Love.
“We cannot be wrong for feeling any feeling today,” the Rev. Joseph Breighner told Love’s family and friends at the service in Baltimore. “At some point we will have to forgive someone [for Yeardley’s death]. Today may not be that day, it may not be for many days, but we will have to forgive because it is the only way to heal.”
Early Monday morning, Love’s roommate found her face down on her bed, badly beaten, lying in a pool of her own blood. Hours later, police arrested Love’s former boyfriend, George Huguely V, and charged him with first-degree murder in her death.
Hundreds gathered at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen to reflect on the 22-year-old’s life through the words of her college lacrosse coach, her teammates and her mother, Sharon Love.
Love’s mother prepared a statement and asked another to read it aloud to the congregation.
“Yeards loves everyone, and everyone loves Yeards,” the statement read. “Yeardley has always made me so proud. Now the torch has been passed to just Lexie [Love’s sister] and I. It is our turn to make Yeardley proud, and we’ll do our very best.”
Love’s father died of cancer while she was in high school.
University of Virginia women’s lacrosse coach, Julie Myers, described Love a selfless team player — but one who didn’t let her lacrosse opponents off easy.
“As genuine, kind and gentle as she was, she was also tough as nails on the lacrosse field. That sweet, kind, tiny Yeards played with a heart the size of a lion,” Myers said.
Myers asked the mass to cheer for the university mascot, the Wahoos, on the count of “four” — because Love always counted to four when starting cheers on the field. Myers counted to four, and everyone shouted “together Hoos” and clapped as Myers stepped away from the podium towards the end of the two-hour ceremony.
Love’s family has set up two memorial funds: the Yeardley Love Memorial Fund at Notre Dame Prep and the Yeardley Love Women’s Lacrosse Scholarship Fund with the Virginia Athletic Foundation.
