Anna Marie Harvey Healey

Anna Marie Harvey Healey died Monday, February 25, 2013 at her home in Seattle, Washington. She will be deeply missed by her family and many friends! Anna has been a long time resident of Seattle.

She was born on June 27, 1961 in Brownsville, Texas to Mary Ann Jones Harvey and James Bell Harvey. She grew up in Austin, Texas with her brother, James (Jimmy) Alfred Harvey, and sister, Amelia Christina Harvey. Anna was always an adventurous person. When she was young she loved to ride her horse, Fresca, through the hills around the family home, swim at Barton Springs pool, and go camping with the family. Anna was very involved in school activities, including being a member of the Westlake High School state championship Cross Country Track team and being 1st chair clarinet in the award winning Westlake HS Band. The Westlake Band toured Japan during her senior year. She was also on the Westlake HS basketball team when girls basketball was a half court game. Anna graduated in the top 10% of her high school class.

Anna went to Randolph-Macon in Virginia for her first year of college. She completed college at the University of Texas in Austin. She was a member of the Plan II Liberal Arts Honors Program and also majored in pre-med. Anna did her medical training at the University of Texas Medical School in San Antonio graduating in 1987. She completed her medical internship at the Medical School of Arizona in Tucson. The following year she worked as a physician at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Tucson.

Anna then did her Medical Residency Training in Psychiatry at the University of Washington Medical School in Seattle. During this time she made many friends among the other residents, many of whom practice in the Seattle area. This was also where she met William (Bill) Vincent Healey, III, who was the head resident.

After her residency Anna took an extended vacation and studied Spanish in the Caribbean, Costa Rica and Guatemala. She gathered many friends and her brother Jimmy for a kayaking trip in the Caribbean, bicycled through Costa Rica and traveled there with her mother.

Anna then returned to Seattle and set up her medical practice in psychiatry and has continued that practice until the present.

On May 7, 1994 she married Bill Healey. The had two wonderful children, Caroline Pearl Healey and Benjamin David Harvey Healey who are now 15 and 13. While Anna and Bill divorced in 2006, they have worked closely together to support, raise and care for their children.

Anna was a thoughtful, caring and creative mother. She arranged her work life and personal life so she could spend time with her children and participate in their activities. She chose places to live in the Blue Ridge neighborhood that was welcoming for children. Anna made her home a place where her children and their friends loved to gather. She and Caroline had many sewing and baking projects together. The family loved to jump on the trampoline, play cards and games, dine at restarants and eat ice cream together.

Anna and Caroline have been members of a mother/daughter group for a number of years. This group of mothers and daughters have met regularly for activities that built strong bonds between the generations and support the daughters as they grow toward womanhood. The bonds of friendship and support are very strong in this group.

Anna was chair of the Blue Ridge Neighborhood 4th of July parade and picnic for many years and arranged other neighborhood activities. One of those was the New Years day Polar Bear Swim which has become a tradition. Anna was also an active member of a women’s book club that has been an enriching and supportive part of her life

The Seabeck Family Camp has become an annual tradition that Anna, her children and other family members have enjoyed together. Several years Anna was editor of the camp newspaper and Caroline was the star reporter. All of the family participated in the many camp activities. Ben took part in the camp talent show by playing his ukulele.

Anna was a loving and strong woman who made a positive impact on those around her. She loved to laugh and challenge others. Anna was proud of her children and grateful to have such supportive friends and family.

Her death was a shock to all who knew her and her memory will live on in the hearts of those she touched.

A EULOGY FOR ANNA MARIE HARVEY HEALEY

MARCH 2, 2013

Thank you all so very much for coming this afternoon to honor the memory of Anna Marie Harvey Healey, and to support her two most precious gifts to life, Caroline and Ben, in this time of terrible terrible loss.

I am here to serve as guide as we visit and move through some of the periods of Anna’s life and pause to pay our respects to someone who deeply and meaningfully touched the lives of all of us in this room.

And we gather to give our strength and support to her beloved children and allow them to feel the tidal wave of love and respect and grief and loss that their mom’s death has inspired.

Anna Harvey was nothing short of a force of nature. It is safe to say that you will not meet a lot of people like her in the course of your life.

She was energetic, intelligent and loving and had a great big heart.

She was passionate and vivacious, well read and informed. She had a profound intellect and loved to read and to discuss politics, the world, books and movies, medicine, spirituality and the meaning life.

She was exuberant, vital, and defined zest for life. She loved people, games, travel and adventure, and was always ready to set up a game night or have a luau or organize a polar bear swim.

She was feisty, opinionated and not one to back down from her beliefs or what she thought was right. She was no stranger to controversy and struggle, but really, who isn’t.

She was a leader and was dedicated to community involvement in a way that is an inspiration to many. Her work with the Blue Ridge community, especially the 4th of July, her favorite holiday, is legendary, as we can see from the plethora of pies brought here in tribute today.

But by far the most meaningful role for her was as an adoring mother to Ben and Caroline. Anna has left the most profound legacy that any of us could hope for, children who reflect our finer qualities. Ben and Caroline are so much the living embodiments of the core values and principles that Anna believed in and held dear. I look at these two wonderful emerging young people and see funny, loving, feisty, energetic, creative, thoughtful, and caring people with strong internal cores. These are the aspects of Anna that will live on, even as she transitions to another plan, past a door we cant see through. It is these qualities that will help them endure the unimaginable grief of losing a mother at such a tender age. It is these qualities of essential human goodness that will endure and nourish and fill her babies with the love she carried. I know she is, and will be, so proud of them

It is to Anna’s great and enduring credit that our co-parenting after our divorce was smooth and supportive and collaborative. I believe the children have benefitted from her dedication to this and her ability to put their best interests first.

We did not see eye to eye on a lot of things, Anna and I, but I can truthfully say that there was never significant friction, before or after our separation, around how these precious kids would be raised. This is the best thing we did.

Anna’s priority was the children, and they came before all else. She gave them so much of what kids need

Time, attention, love, nurturing, and an infinite capacity to be there fully with their thoughts and feelings. She was in the moment and vitally present with them, even when it was clear that she was struggling herself. She never lost sight of what really matters in this life, the living legacy we leave in our off spring. She had the maternal instincts of what children need, and Ben and Caroline are so fortunate to have had that experience.

We want to share what we know at this point about the circumstances of Anna’s death. We all know Anna was struggling mightily in the last few years with her depression and mood disorder, but we do not yet understand the exact nature of her passing

At this point the medical examiner has not determined cause of death, and there is no evidence of heart attack or damage to cardiac tissue, stroke, obvious suicide, or foul play. There is no concrete evidence that this was intentional. It will be weeks for results of blood tests which will help us understand more. She was found dressed, with her home in order, and looking like she was off to pick up Ben at school. When she did not arrive on time, we worried about something very wrong, she had never not shown up before. BUT Anna had not been looking well. I am suspecting that a combination of meds she was taking for depression and recent rapid weight loss may have led to an arrhythmia of her heart, which would not be detectable on autopsy. Further results will help us know more.

Although it is my feeling that Anna did die of her mood disorder, from my heart I want to share that this does not have the essence of any intentional action. No one who knows anything about the heart of Anna Harvey would believe that she would do something that would harm her children.

So what can you REALLY say about the death of a parent, especially a mom. There is no bond in life that exists like that between a mother and her children. How do you say goodbye? There is so much unfinished business. There is so much left unsaid and undone. Losing a parent is devastating, sad and painful at any age, but how much more so when you are trying to figure out how to be a young man or woman. It can be so frightening, overwhelming and sad sad sad.

But I am here to say to Caroline and Ben that you are not alone. I and everyone here will continue to support and cherish and love you. We will help you toward understanding and accepting this terrible new reality, a world without your adored mother. We will help you grieve and be sad over your tragic loss. We will help you find ways to remember and honor your mom, and we will find ways to celebrate the joy, and laughter, and love that she brought to the world, to others and most especially to you. You have the love of your grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, neighbors and schools, and the most loving stepmother Linda and sister Kate that one can imagine. Your mom will not be forgotten.

There are so many tears and so much sadness behind us, and ahead of us. There is no other way to describe the outpouring of love and support that has wrapped its arms around us than overwhelming and deeply helpful. Every message, card, text, and call has conveyed the understanding of the deep and awful sadness that this is for all, especially Caroline and Ben. And every action, plate of food, flower, slide show, clubhouse organizing, pie, every help with the program, has conveyed these supportive feelings even more.

This is the beginning of a long and hard process. We appreciate the offers of help and hands extended, and look forward to having the call or email or visit that will continue to put words to action, and demonstrate the love of a power greater than us, and its manifestation in community.

I would like to conclude with words from Ralph Waldo Emerson entitled

To laugh often and much

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

To laugh often and much;


to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children;


to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;


to appreciate beauty;


to find the best in others;


to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;


to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here.


This is to have succeeded.

I think it is fair to say that on each and every count, Anna Marie Harvey Healey had a life that was a success.

May she rest in peace.

Please send photographs you would like placed on the page to Mr. John Krake: [email protected]