Todzilla
07-09-07, 07:50 AM
This sucks. Add to the major tragedy my minor inconvenience of knowing my wife will read this article this evening and I'm a bike commuter...
Passion, creativity marked her life (http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/631042.html)
From the Raleigh News and Observer:
Jesse James DeConto, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - Emily Rosen was following her passion when she was involved in an accident that would eventually take her life.
Rosen left her job at the N.C. Museum of Art on June 25 and rode her custom-made 14-speed commuting bicycle to meet her personal trainer at his gym on Buck Jones Road in Cary.
As she approached Farm Gate Road traveling south on Buck Jones, a car pulled out in front of her, and her bike collided with it. She was taken to WakeMed in critical condition and died 10 days later. She was 49.
Two months earlier, she had ridden Haleakala, a 10,000-foot peak in Hawaii. Most tourists drive up the mountain and ride down. Rosen biked up the the thing. She had friends pick her up at the top because she wasn't interested in rolling back down.
"Speed never was really the reason she rode," said her husband and tandem-bike partner, Andy Stewart, a bicycle mechanic who built her commuting bike.
"She rode to experience what was going on.
"The times that she was most disappointed with her bicycle riding were the very, very, very few times that she had to get off and walk up a hill. The challenge of getting up the hill was, I think, part of the reward and the sense of accomplishment."
Her mother, Judith Rosen-Glauber, agreed.
"She just would not take 'no' for an answer," Rosen-Glauber said by phone from suburban Cleveland, Ohio. "If there was something she felt that she couldn't do, she just worked on it until she could do it. If there was something she couldn't do well, she just found a way around it."
Rosen overcame other obstacles, too. She was a legally blind photographer. For a time, she made an art form of blurred images in order to compensate.
But a few surgeries and corrective lenses helped her to see the world and create art that helped others experience its beauty.
Rosen was director of visitor services at the museum. Last fall and winter, she helped to welcome more than 200,000 visitors to the museum for the "Monet in Normandy" exhibit.
As part of her work, she helped manage more than 300 museum volunteers. Robert Mlodzik, coordinator of volunteer and visitor services, said Rosen's inspired spirit and sense of humor served her well.
"When the crowds were just overwhelming and the people were being demanding, she would just come and lift their spirits," he said.
Rosen also had a creative streak. She commissioned a tie-dye T-shirt to mimic Monet's "Water Lilies" for the museum gift shop.
For the museum's most recent special exhibit, "Temples and Tombs," Rosen thought up a line of women's gifts -- aprons and mugs, for example -- with a "Lady of the House" theme, based on a translation of hieroglyphics on a sarcophagus in the museum's Egyptian collection.
Caterri Woodrum, the museum's chief deputy director and chief financial officer, said the "Lady" products have sold well and will live on after the exhibit leaves the museum, a testament to Rosen's ability to figure out what people need and want.
"This museum is in very definite mourning over her death," Woodrum said.
Rosen death came as she was pursing a passion despite its challenges. Stewart said his wife understood the danger of riding with traffic, but it never would have stopped her.
Passion, creativity marked her life (http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/631042.html)
From the Raleigh News and Observer:
Jesse James DeConto, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - Emily Rosen was following her passion when she was involved in an accident that would eventually take her life.
Rosen left her job at the N.C. Museum of Art on June 25 and rode her custom-made 14-speed commuting bicycle to meet her personal trainer at his gym on Buck Jones Road in Cary.
As she approached Farm Gate Road traveling south on Buck Jones, a car pulled out in front of her, and her bike collided with it. She was taken to WakeMed in critical condition and died 10 days later. She was 49.
Two months earlier, she had ridden Haleakala, a 10,000-foot peak in Hawaii. Most tourists drive up the mountain and ride down. Rosen biked up the the thing. She had friends pick her up at the top because she wasn't interested in rolling back down.
"Speed never was really the reason she rode," said her husband and tandem-bike partner, Andy Stewart, a bicycle mechanic who built her commuting bike.
"She rode to experience what was going on.
"The times that she was most disappointed with her bicycle riding were the very, very, very few times that she had to get off and walk up a hill. The challenge of getting up the hill was, I think, part of the reward and the sense of accomplishment."
Her mother, Judith Rosen-Glauber, agreed.
"She just would not take 'no' for an answer," Rosen-Glauber said by phone from suburban Cleveland, Ohio. "If there was something she felt that she couldn't do, she just worked on it until she could do it. If there was something she couldn't do well, she just found a way around it."
Rosen overcame other obstacles, too. She was a legally blind photographer. For a time, she made an art form of blurred images in order to compensate.
But a few surgeries and corrective lenses helped her to see the world and create art that helped others experience its beauty.
Rosen was director of visitor services at the museum. Last fall and winter, she helped to welcome more than 200,000 visitors to the museum for the "Monet in Normandy" exhibit.
As part of her work, she helped manage more than 300 museum volunteers. Robert Mlodzik, coordinator of volunteer and visitor services, said Rosen's inspired spirit and sense of humor served her well.
"When the crowds were just overwhelming and the people were being demanding, she would just come and lift their spirits," he said.
Rosen also had a creative streak. She commissioned a tie-dye T-shirt to mimic Monet's "Water Lilies" for the museum gift shop.
For the museum's most recent special exhibit, "Temples and Tombs," Rosen thought up a line of women's gifts -- aprons and mugs, for example -- with a "Lady of the House" theme, based on a translation of hieroglyphics on a sarcophagus in the museum's Egyptian collection.
Caterri Woodrum, the museum's chief deputy director and chief financial officer, said the "Lady" products have sold well and will live on after the exhibit leaves the museum, a testament to Rosen's ability to figure out what people need and want.
"This museum is in very definite mourning over her death," Woodrum said.
Rosen death came as she was pursing a passion despite its challenges. Stewart said his wife understood the danger of riding with traffic, but it never would have stopped her.