At funeral for Trinity Gay, calls for ‘passing the baton’ to keep Lexington safer
The image that kept recurring during the speeches at Saturday’s funeral for Trinity Gay was of the young sprinter handing off a baton to others — those who would make Lexington a safer place than it was last Sunday morning, when the 15-year-old was shot to death in a fast-food parking lot.
Although not scheduled to speak during the funeral, Olympic runner Tyson Gay, Trinity’s father, took the stage and recalled that he left Lexington when Trinity was just six months old to attend college so that he could be a better father to his daughter with Lexingtonian Shoshana Boyd.
Gay thanked those who have supported the family since Trinity’s death, including members of the worldwide community of track and field. But his most pressing words were for Lexington, a city that he thanked for raising him — the elder Gay was a track star at Lafayette before going on to compete in three Olympics — but also said the city needs to be a safer place for young people growing up here now.
“This is our community that we have to take back,” Tyson Gay said, speaking softly. “I really hope we can lead our young kids down the right path. I need help ... to help her legacy to keep moving.”
Trinity, a promising track athlete herself at Lafayette High School, died after being shot in the parking lot of Lexington’s Cook Out Restaurant at 855 South Broadway.
Four men have been arrested and charged with being involved in an exchange of gunfire between two cars in the Cook Out area when Trinity, an innocent bystander, was hit. Trinity was listening to music in the parking lot with friends, according to the girls who were with her.
The funeral, held at Southland Christian Church’s Harrodsburg Road campus in Jessamine County, was attended by more than 1,000 mourners.
Its tone was upbeat, with powerful vocal performances, in keeping with the religious beliefs of Trinity’s family that funerals are a celebration of the passing onto another spiritual plane.
Pastor Justin Barnes, the officiating minister at the funeral, said that Trinity “has moved from labor to a reward. This is a celebration.”
Daisy Lowe, Trinity’s grandmother, said Trinity “had the most infectious personality. ... She was everything you’d want in a child. She knew where she was going ... and she was headed in that direction. ... I believe Trinity is passing the baton. Who is going to take it and run with it?”
Trinity Gay was a student with a 4.0 grade point average who wanted to become a plastic surgeon.
Trinity’s best friend, Destin Gay, read a poem that concluded: “I love you, I miss you and it’s killing me to say that.”
Lafayette track coach Crystal Washington sent a remembrance of Trinity quoting Maya Angelou’s poem “When Great Trees Fall”: “And when great souls die/after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. ... Our senses, restored, never/to be the same, whisper to us. ... /We can be. Be and be/better. For they existed.”
Trinity Gay will be buried Monday at Greenwood Cemetery in Russellville.
She would have turned 16 on Dec. 12.
This story was originally published October 22, 2016 at 4:29 PM with the headline "At funeral for Trinity Gay, calls for ‘passing the baton’ to keep Lexington safer."