PORTLAND, Ore. — A crowd of nearly 500 gathered Friday to honor one of two people gunned down Dec. 11 at an Oregon shopping mall, sharing memories of a woman described as both “the original neighborhood hippie mom” and a compassionate hospice nurse.
Chaplain Tom Nolen worked with 54-year-old Cindy Yuille at Kaiser Permanente. He told the crowd that the day was “all about Cindy.”
“This is not the time to go on about the tragedy itself or the sorry state of our world, where innocent people are victims of violence and terrorism,” he said.
The Oregonian reported that Yuille’s daughter Jenna Passalacqua, 23, described her as a “hippie mom” who raised Jenna and her step-brother to respect the Earth and be kind and accepting of others. Others talked about her love of the outdoors and animals.
Yuille and Steve Forsyth were fatally shot at the Clackamas Town Center before the shooter killed himself. Police identified him as 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts. A 15-year-old girl was seriously wounded. Kristina Shevchenko was released from a Portland hospital this week.
At Kaiser, Cindy Yuille met and later married another hospice nurse, Robert Yuille. In their free time, they traveled to China, Fiji, Mexico and Canada, and they hiked, climbed, swam and cross-country skied through wilderness areas throughout the West.
“Cindy was the embodiment of what we strive for at Kaiser Permanente, which is to put the patient first,” Kaiser Northwest President Andy McCulloch told the gathering.
Other speakers talked of how proud she was of her children and how much she loved her husband.
Robert Yuille told KATU-TV how he gets through the days.
“The only way I’ve been able to deal with it is to realize that it was totally random,” he said. “He didn’t shoot her — he just shot. He was just shooting.”
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