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October 11, 2023
I had a friend whose name was Sunday Lewis.
I met her in the mid-80's when the software company I worked for hired her firm - Techvantage - to help us conduct market research.
I was responsible for Market Research at the time, and every year we would conduct surveys to make sure we understood the needs of our customers and target markets.
We also conducted focus groups throughout the year - and we contracted Sunday's firm to help set up and run the focus groups.
Techvantage would reserve the space for the focus groups - typically in New York City, Chicago and LA - recruit the attendees and prepare the reports.
To moderate the focus groups, Sunday brought in a distinguished looking, tweed-jacketed gentleman with a British accent by the name of Edward.
Edward was very colorful and was the only person I ever met who could drop the expression "toot sweet" into just about any conversation.
I still am not sure if Edward was really British - he easily could have been just another New York actor working a side gig.
But he was very effective and was able to get the attendees to share their opinions.
Typically, we would conduct two focus groups each day - one at lunch time and then another after work - usually around 6 PM.
Sunday loved New York and would always insist on taking me out to dinner after the focus groups that we held there.
She was very trendy and always insisted on taking me to one of the newest - "Chi-Chi" - places in the city.
As some of you know, I am not exactly a "Chi-Chi" kind of guy - but it made Sunday happy, and dinner and drinks inevitably turned into a fun night as she pointed out celebrities and shared and inquired about the latest gossip - she loved to gossip.
That's how I ended up checking out the scene at the just-opened Aquavit in '87 and a number of other trendy restaurants that I probably would never have visited on my own.
Sunday loved to get dressed up and was always wearing something stylish and colorful - even in the middle of winter.
She once told me going out in the depths of winter was the best time to be out on the streets of New York - because the muggers didn't want to go out in the cold.
I used to joke with her that if she ever got married again, she should marry Jimmy Buffett because then her name would be - Sunday Buffett...
For a number of years at Christmas she would send me a variety of very fine wines as a holiday gift.
I left the software company in 1992 but for several years Sunday would still look me up when she was back in the DC area and would invite us out to dinner.
As the years went by, I lost track of Sunday - so a few months ago I decided to see if I could find her and try to reconnect and hear about what she had been up to.
I remembered hearing that she had moved to the San Francisco Bay area during the mid-90s to be closer to the Tech community in Silicon Valley.
With a name like Sunday Lewis, it didn't take long to find out what had happened to her - and the answers I found were not what I had hoped for or expected.
What I found was a sad, strange and ultimately touching tale...
The first thing I found was a brief story on SFGATE.com which noted that Sunday had died suddenly at the age of 57 in a Las Vegas hotel in 2004.
The article also noted that "Ms. Lewis was a gourmet cook specializing in Italian cuisine, a former competitive surfer and a devotee of Bay Area museums and live theater."
I knew some of that - but the competitive surfer part was news to me - but so, so Sunday!
The article also said that she was survived by a son named Robert and that a memorial service was going to be held at Old St. Mary's Cathedral on October 23rd.
Well, sadly my search for news about Sunday appeared to be over - until I took another look at the search results.
A few results below the SFGATE article I found another article from 11 years later that continued the story of Sunday Lewis.
The article was from a February 2015 issue of the Catholic Key - a magazine published by the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City.
The article recounted the story of how a small box labeled "Sunday Lewis" had been found on the office porch of St. Patrick Catholic Church.
The label noted the date of her death, the date of her cremation and the name of a San Francisco funeral home.
There was also a note saying "These remain (s) I found abandoned in Coolie (sic) Park. I did not feel it to be respectfull (sic). So I hope you can take care of what is the right thing to be done."
The staff at St. Patrick had never heard of Sunday Lewis and wondered why her ashes had been left on the steps of the parish office - 10 years after her death and more than 1,800 miles from her home?
The parish priest and a deacon did some research, and they also found the same SFGATE article that I had found, and they contacted Old St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco.
Their contact at Old St. Mary's said she remembered Sunday and told them Sunday had been an active parishioner and had been survived by a son named Robert.
A man with the same name - Robert Lewis - had been a regular to St. Patrick's food pantry but had ceased coming about the time the ashes were found.
Could he be related to Sunday Lewis, they wondered?
After a bit more research a reporter from the Catholic Key was able to connect with a friend of Sunday in California who provided more details about her life.
According to the friend - "Sunday, "Sunny" Lewis was born in Florida in 1947. Apparently, an only child, she graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in education. After teaching for a year, she changed careers and served as a marketing director in Virginia, and later in Chicago before moving to New York. After taking classes in computer science and technology, she founded a consulting firm, Techvantage."
That would be the same Techvantage that we hired back in the 80s.
The friend also said that Sunday had opened a Las Vegas office in 1997 and noted that the job was incredibly stressful, involving frequent flights to San Francisco and back. "She worked so hard, gave her best and was very outgoing."
She said that Sunday's death was sudden and unexpected.
She also said that she had lost touch with Sunday's son Robert after informing him of his mother's death.
Without a next of kin, the Saint Patrick parish staff and Sunday's friend agreed that the best course of action would be to provide Sunday with a proper burial in a donated plot in the parish cemetery.
The friend said that she believed Sunday would be thankful and be smiling down at what was happening.
So, on a sun-filled day in February of 2015 - at a service attended by 30 middle school students from St. Patrick Grade School - Sunday Lewis was finally laid to rest.
Later that day, the deacon at St. Patrick received a phone call from Robert Lewis - the former St. Patrick's Food pantry regular.
It turns out that Robert Lewis was indeed Sunday's son.
He had moved to the Kansas City area a few years earlier to be with his partner.
But he had been homeless for the past two years and the truck that he had been living out of had been broken into about a year previously and all of his belongings had been taken - including his mother's ashes.
Apparently, the person who took the ashes had tossed them into the woods at Cooley Park.
According to the Catholic Key article, Robert told the deacon that after suffering the second loss of his mother when her ashes were stolen, Robert now knows where she rests and takes comfort knowing that she will be cared for.
The story about Sunday's time after we lost touch was certainly not the outcome that I had hoped for - but I will cherish the time I was able to spend with Sunday and applaud her best efforts to make me a bit more "Chi-Chi".
I may still have one of those bottles of wine in the cellar somewhere and will make sure to wear something stylish when I open it and raise a toast to Sunday this weekend.
For Sunday - who was one of the most fun and interesting people I ever met - and a friend.
