A Saratoga Springs High School graduate with deep ties to the community died in childbirth this month, leaving an unimaginable hole in the lives of her many family and friends. I sat down with her husband, stepdaughter, and childhood friend to reflect on a life cut tragically short.
The news sent shockwaves through Emma McTiernan’s circle.
In the early morning hours of November 8th, she died while giving birth to her second son.
Emma was deeply ingrained in the community of Saratoga Springs where she lived and worked for most of her life, after being adopted by her single mother, Kathleen Ann McGee, her personal hero.
Often in moments of unbearable grief, recollecting happy memories can bring some respite to a hurting heart.
With their emotions still raw, Emma’s closest childhood friend Kathryn Browne-Lorcher, her husband Joe McTiernan, and his eldest daughter Ariel Kraeling shared heartfelt stories of their beloved wife, mother, and companion.
Emma is survived by her healthy newborn, Finn McTiernan, and 12-year-old Jack Pond.
Kathryn Browne-Lorcher is one of Emma’s oldest friends.
“In the beginning, I was the weird one who was teased for reading for fun and making art and playing music by ear on the keyboard,” said Browne-Lorcher. “But like most preteens, Emma was initially hesitant to to openly enjoy anything that might be uncool. However, over the years, I had the absolute privilege of a front row seat in watching her grow into an unapologetic Star Wars fan – like tattoos and everything. Who loved to just devour books, and create beautiful heartfelt personalized artwork for her loved ones. Cry happy tears well into her 30s when her Sims video game characters got married, and just light up as her fingers flew across the keyboard. To this day, and my mother and I can't hear the beautiful opening waltz of Ben Fold song “Narcolepsy,” without smiling and saying “Aw, Emma,” at the memories of her constantly playing at both of our houses.”
Browne-Lorcher continued, “right from the beginning, making me laugh quickly grew to be my favorite thing about our friendship. I clearly remember on more than one occasion announcing to people – including her own mother, which I still kind of can't believe I said – that I was put on this earth to make me laugh. And at the time, there was a very silly, very self-aware, hyperbolic nature to the sentiment. But as we grew up together, and any hard times came, I always strived to make Emma laugh in an effort to take away any pain that she might be feeling.”
Ariel Kraeling is Joe McTiernan’s eldest daughter, stepdaughter to Emma.
“Two things I mean, a few things really, that Emma and I had in common is we love making fun of my dad,” said Kraeling. “That right there, I was like, okay, yeah, she's the one. We both love cats. And we both love taking shots of tequila. So, she marks all things in my book as – so I'm really going to miss that. But the relationship, like I said, it after really getting to know each other, it was truly a blessing to have her in my life. And we were actually pregnant at the same time together. So, in the beginning, of course, that was a little tough to swallow but it was amazing what our relationship turned into. Because of that, it really created this bond between the two of us and we talked almost every day towards the end. And we just had a lot and a lot in common and we really leaned on each other through a lot of you know, just like, funny pregnancy symptoms or cravings. Or like, we could just talk to each other about weird pregnancy stuff. You know what I mean? So, I feel really blessed that we were able to have that.
“My birthday?” asked Kraeling.
“Right there was the birthday, right, where we went out to a sushi restaurant down in Clifton Park but then right after that we went over to the Mexican restaurant to, you know do—” said Joe McTiernan.
Kraeling cut in, “We went from taking sake bombs to tequila shots. And if you thought her laugh was infectious before wait until you get a couple of tequila shots in her and it’s just the best.”
“But we would always have fun even just going out,” continued McTiernan. “And for Emma and I, one of our favorite things to do would be to pick a person, couple, group across the way and just create a dialogue of what they were saying.”
Joe McTiernan is Emma’s husband.
“Right? And we would spin off of that or give each other's version of like, “Okay, see those two people right there? What's their story? And just create bits. So, gosh, she was so good at it. So, was that trouble? No, that was like comedy writing not really trouble. But again, like I said, she, she loved to travel. She felt very at home in New York City. It was our favorite place to visit.”
“She definitely loved to dance too when we’d go out.” said Browne-Lorcher.
“Oh my god, right? She loved to dance, yes,” said McTiernan.
“My husband recalls that his first memory of meeting her was for my birthday out at Waterworks down in Albany. And he and it was just, like, right off the bat. They just hit it off as fast friends,” said Kraeling.
“I think it's more than the story,” said McTiernan. “It's the relationships that are continuing to be created. The deeper relationships that are being able to be created through a tragic event. So, whether it be these two getting together, us growing closer, the, of course, you know, Finn, who doesn't have much to say now, but the amount of people who have said, you know, ‘We’ll always be there for Finn,’ because they would have been there for Emma. So, it’s not just that she touched so many different areas on the surface, it's how deep her touch reached for everybody that is like, ‘hey, we want to – when is the celebration we want to be involved.’ And it was like chaos, so it just keeps growing. It keeps growing where, you know, we'll do something to celebrate her short life.”
“As something to have for myself, but for her family, and especially for her sons, Jack and Finn, because whether it is a story about making silly baking soda and vinegar, volcano, or just being there for other just important milestones, I want to be able to have her live on that way and to do right by her and by her memory and honor her and all that she was for all of us, and just wanting to further take care of her family, especially Finn, and let him know just what a wonderful, wonderful human his mom was,” Browne-Lorcher said. “And so, that's a thing that I hope to be able to do. And it could very well of course, be a big collaborative thing.”
“Right, because there is a responsibility to the adults to make sure that her memory, life, teachings are preserved for the – not just the two boys, but you know that the next generation, Megan, and my daughter, Caitlin, but all those gymnasts – just again all the all the people that she had an influence on,” said McTiernan.
“I promise we'll do whatever we can to make sure that you know, her boys and her family, which is all she ever wanted is taken care of. You know, as like the big sister, I just, I promised to just to take care of, especially Finn, you know. And where she – we will do whatever we can to make sure she's remembered. Emma's the kind of person that is never forgotten.”
“You know what Emma was best at, was around the table, being the patriarch in a house full of women, when I would say something and then maybe Meghan would disagree or Caitlin would disagree or you would be like ‘No!’ and then Emma would immediately side with whoever the girl was.”
“She was always on our side,” said Meghan McTiernan, who was taking care of Finn during the interview.
“Always on your side. And it was all part of the game to gain favor from you guys and also create this unity,” said McTiernan. “She created unity out of nothingness no matter where she went, to get everybody, gosh she was so good.”
Joe McTiernan turned the conversation to one of Emma’s favorite foods.
“Emma’s love of popcorn is unsurpassed,” said McTiernan. “We would literally travel because Emma loved to travel. New York City is her favorite, Boston. We would go up to Lake Placid. Lake Placid has a popcorn shop on the main drag. And we will buy five-pound bags of popcorn because it's all different kinds of popcorn like little lady finger popcorn mushroom popcorn it's called – you know, bit kernels – so, we've made a couple of trips up there. But, the amount of popcorn that has been made in every house is right? Meg knows, like ‘I’m gonna make popcorn.’ And it was always perfect.”
Kathryn Browne-Lorcher jumped in, “well, what's funny with the popcorn is that, like I said, popcorn was a huge staple of our sleepovers. And what it started was, in the beginning, anytime we went to her house, we had microwave popcorn. And every time we went to my house, my dad would make us popcorn on the stove with the oil. But it was a special treat for me at her house for the microwave popcorn and her at my house with the stove popcorn. And at some point over the years, it ended up switching, whereas I'm always eating microwave popcorn now and she's would always be—”
Joe McTiernan added, “‘trash, she says.”
“Yeah, I know. And she would say—I'm like, ‘that's what we had at your house, when did you start doing that?’ I think she was saying, you know, because of when she would eat it at my place at the sleepover. So, I thought that was funny. And, actually, the night that Finn was born, I sat down with a bowl of popcorn, which I always eat basically an entire bag myself unless my husband gets a few lucky pieces. But for some reason that night, I only half the bowl. And then the next morning after talking and I went to the kitchen and the half bowl of popcorn was sitting there which felt weird,” said Browne-Lorcher.
“The wake that she created but her family was her life, right? Whether it be close friends or blood.” McTiernan continued, “you know, she, again, talk about the bond she made with Ariel but she also made bonds with Meghan and with my other daughter Cait who's not here. And Jack, I know you said earlier, Jack just—god she loves that kid so much. Almost on the daily, she would show me a picture, even if it was a picture I'd seen literally 10 other times. Like, ‘Joe look.’ ‘Joe look’ is the phrase that I will never forget because it was just a picture of Jack whether he was you know, whatever age, and she goes ‘that's my little bean.’ But she was so incredibly proud of, of Jack, and I mean of all the kids and everybody that had accomplished, but, you know, her own flesh and blood she loved. She loved Jack. I found a little snippet of something she had just jotted down a few—like a week before, a month before. And one of the paragraphs was there, ‘god, I hope he knows how proud of him that I am.’ I made sure to share that with Jack. But, the girl just had so much love to give.”
“Family was so important to Emma. As a child of adoption by a single mother, Emma knew that what a family looks like doesn't matter,” said Browne-Lorcher. “It's what you make of it that counts. She built a family from a beautiful patchwork of friends, a husband, stepchildren, and her sons. Building her family was everything to Emma and she kept it front and center until the very end. Being a mother to her older son Jack was Emma's favorite and most important role in life. And she’d expressed to me that she knew there was just one more child missing, who would make her beautiful family complete. Her very wished for baby son Finn. Every time Conrad and I saw Emma and Joe it was an occasion of joy, of togetherness, and of absolute friendship. The last time we saw her was no different. We'd all gone to see Ben Folds performing Troy at the end of September. After the show, we all stood outside discussing Ben, his music, its profound impact on each of our lives, and ultimately the connections we had with each other. We laughed, we smiled, we shared joy, we talked about the future. We walked Emma and Joe to their car, but were so caught up in each other's company that we inadvertently ended up blocks away from where they had actually parked, which we all laughed about, including Emma at 31 and a half weeks pregnant. Looking back I’m deeply grateful for the unexpected detour on that foggy night which gifted us with those extra few happy carefree last moments altogether.”
Emma McTiernan was 36. She died in childbirth in early November. She was remembered in this piece by Emma’s closest childhood friend Kathryn Browne-Lorcher, her husband Joe McTiernan, and his eldest daughter Ariel Krealing.
A celebration of her life is being planned for the new year.
