TING AND I, Tributes to Tina Su Cooper from Friends

JUDY JAYSON SONFIELD　



Tina developed several lasting friendships at Cornell. Judy and Tina’s friendship has lasted for nearly fifty years, a tribute to their loyalty and empathy. Judy and Matt Sonfield and Deanne and Gerry Gitner were the special friends Tina invited to her second wedding, June 1984. And they were the friends who visited her during her nearly fatal hospitalization in 2004.

　

I’ve known Tina since freshman year at Cornell. We roomed together as sophomores—the year Tina and Doug became totally involved with one another and the year I met Matt, my future husband. It was a wonderful time for both of us.
　
At the end of our sophomore year, both Doug and Matt graduated, and life changed for all of us—with Tina going to London and Doug and Matt going on to work and graduate school, respectively. By senior year I was married and living in Cambridge. After Tina married and moved to Chicago, we didn’t see one another for many years.
　
Then everything changed. Tina was diagnosed with MS, and Doug came back into her life. Matt and I, along with Deanne and Gerry Gitner, attended their warm, intimate wedding. At the wedding luncheon Tina’s father made a beautiful toast to their enduring love.
　
For a number of years, while Tina’s MS was under control, we were able to meet for dinners, attend a college reunion, and they joined us at our son’s Bar Mitzvah.
　
You could easily dwell on Tina’s illness and on her constant battle over these many years, but Tina and Doug’s romance during college and their coming together years later is the love story that I like to share.

　


RUTH GOLDBERG


Ruth and Mal Goldberg, like Wendy and Zane, have been among our very closest friends since the days in Millwood, NY, when we could get together easily. Now living part of each year in Florida, Ruth writes:
Tina was and has always been a sweet, loving and giving person. She has been a very good friend to me. We used to share many happy moments together. I loved getting together on those great New Year’s Eve celebrations as well as sitting quietly and talking. When Tina began to have trouble driving, I took her to church every week. We became spiritually connected, and we will be forever. I feel blessed that she has been such a loving friend to me.