There’s an old spiritual that admonishes, “When I’m on my journey, don’t you weep after me; I don’t want you to weep after me.”
When Cindy Weindling died last Wednesday, she was surrounded with friends and family who had shared her last weeks laughing, telling bad jokes and drinking Green Tea Frappuccino, the only food she wanted – other than chocolate chip cookies.
The lyrics are intended to remind survivors that the newly departed should be remembered with a cheerful spirit. That spirit was recalled repeatedly at Weindling’s memorial service Friday, from a letter from Mayor John Hickenlooper to recollections from friends, colleagues and family, notably Weindling’s sister Carol, the oldest and only surviving sibling of four sisters and brothers.
“If anything, I’d have thought Cindy would be speaking words over me,” she said as her voice broke. “I shouldn’t be here, speaking words over her.”
Weindling, executive vice president of the Colorado Restaurant Association, died Oct. 12, but not before she attended a celebration in her honor.
“It took three hours to get her dressed and her hair done right, but by golly, when we left the house she looked great,” says Marlys Connor, a close friend and the person to whom she turned as her cancer worsened. “It was a wonderful afternoon, where people could give her a hug and a kiss. It was her last chance to say goodbye to all of her friends.”
She died four days later, a month shy of her 50th birthday.
Victoria Ashby, whose friendship with Weindling reached back two decades, recalled conversations over the years about their respective sons. Ashby’s 33-year-old son died last June of a rare blood disease.
“Here she was in the midst of painful chemotherapy, and attending my son’s memorial service,” says Ashby, a manager with American Express and an ordained minister. “Cindy just smiled and said if the same thing had happened to her son, she knew I would have been there for her. I am here today to pay tribute to an exceptional human being.”
Weindling’s favorite restaurant was Strings, and owner Noel Cunningham was among those who attended Weindling’s memorial service – along with vendors, colleagues and such restaurateurs as Sam Arnold, owner of the Fort in Morrison.
Restaurant association president and CEO, Pete Meersman, cited Weindling’s indominitable spirit.
“Cindy was the brains behind the organization of both of our “Dine Out” events – one for the restaurant workers who were victims of 9/11, and a recent one for restaurant workers affected by Katrina. She was able to figure out how, in a very short period of time, we could rally restaurant support for these tragedies.”
Connor met Weindling through CRA and they became fast friends, resulting in Connor recommending Weindling for membership in Les Dames D’Escoffier International, a culinary women’s organization.
Weindling continued to organize events and field media questions for almost two years after her diagnosis. By the time doctors found the small-cell cancer that ravaged her body, it was at Stage 4 and had invaded her lymph nodes.
Still, she held to her faith and maintained her sense of humor with a select group that included her ex-husband’s second wife, who was at her bedside when she died.
“You tell other people that and they’re shocked at how the second wife and the first wife got along so well together,” Sonia Weindling says. “But we’ve known each other more than a decade as friends. The beginning was tough, but as the years went by, we both loved Jacob (Weindling’s son) the same. When we rode in the car together, she and I would compare notes on the man we’d both married. She and my daughter Michelle are the best of friends. Or, I guess, were.”
Deborah Dix, president of Dix Communications, also shared many a maternal moment with Weindling.
“When we first became friends 15 years ago, we met frequently at Leo Goto’s Wellshire Inn, where we would laugh at his jokes and solve the problems of the world over lunch,” she says.
“Comparing notes about our sons and being working mothers, we covered a lot of ground in those lunches. As the boys became teenagers, the lunches turned into cocktails after work, or the occasional wine dinner. These times were always filled with laughter. ”
Weindling touched many lives in different ways.
Denver freelance writer and CRA consultant, Lynn Bronikowski, remembers the gift Weindling gave her before a trip to South America last year.
“It was a medal of the Blessed Virgin to keep me safe when I was traveling to Peru,” she says. “I was so touched. Here she was in the midst of her battle with cancer, thinking about others. When it would have been so easy to become angry, Cindy found comfort in her faith. We laughed that we felt like Catholic school girls again with our little gold medals.
“I was her ‘Thelma & Louise’ sidekick at the Colorado Restaurant Association,” Bronikowski says. “We never did figure out who was Thelma and who was Louise, but whichever one was nicer was Cindy.”
Staff writer Ellen Sweets can be reached at 303-820-1284 or esweets@denverpost.com.
