Laughter, tears shared at memorial for slain teen

Her loved ones were in abundance yesterday, as two churches and a lawn filled with mourners from this tight-knit community. The service was seen on video by those who also gathered in nearby Trinitarian Congregational Church.

As they eulogized her, alternating between laughter and tears, those who knew Astley tried to make sense of her death.

“If there were a merciful God, it wouldn’t be so,’’ said Bruce Paulsen, Astley’s uncle. “But it is so. And here we are.’’

“The tragic manner of her death makes it so much harder, especially because the way she died was so incongruous with who she was and how she lived,’’ he added.

He spoke of the sister-like bond that had grown between his niece and his daughter, Anna, who looked up to her older cousin. He had hoped that they would comfort each other when their parents were gone, he said. Now, he had to comfort Anna for Lauren’s loss.

Astley’s classmates and friends looked up to her, too, said Ariel Chates, who with Astley’s three other closest friends spoke after Paulsen. The four recalled how Astley loved buying coffee from Starbucks with them every morning before school, how her car was perpetually out of gas because she had spent all her money on a new outfit or shoes, and how easily she won friends with her sass and smile.

Astley and Chates were so close that even the girls’ parents sometimes mistook one for the other in photos of the two, Chates said.

“It used to drive me and Lauren crazy, but if anyone ever does that again, I can point to it and say, ‘That’s my sister,’ ’’ Chates said, her voice breaking into a sob as one of the other girls rubbed her back. “Lauren, you’ll always be my sister.’’

The church leaders, who dedicated Astley, watched her grow from precocious child into young woman, and led her on service trips to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, counseled the mourners to heal from her death by focusing on the three things she loved most: her family, her friends, and music.