Michelle Garcia

1961 - 2022

Michelle Garcia
October 11, 1961 - August 20, 2022
Michelle Maria Garcia was born October 11, 1961, in San Francisco, California. This kind, creative, beautiful woman was taken from us all too soon on August 20, 2022 after a brief illness.
Michelle was a warm and generous host. She and her family shared their Thanksgiving dinners with many friends. The menu was as likely to include chicken adobo as roast turkey, because Michelle was accomplished in the Filipino cuisine of her mother, Estelle. Hank Garcia had met Estelle when she was on stage in a play at International House. They too had loved to entertain in their Mediterranean-style home on Baden Street in Glen Park, serving on crystal from Estelle's custom cabinet.
Michelle's own artistic home on Quintara Street near the beach in the Outer Richmond resonated with music from her classic piano and glowed with Michelle's' brilliant oil paintings and watercolors. A friend recalls: "I never left her house without her giving me food to take home, a referral to a good book to read, and a big hug."
Michelle graduated from Scripps College in Claremont California, with a B.A. in Fine Arts and went on to study copyediting, writing and journalism at San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley. A classmate from Scripps remembers Michelle as unabashedly gorgeous, glamorous, and proudly San Francisco, with a wicked wit accompanying her knowledge of Western literature, as a woman who defied and broke barriers, and shared her family and her life's journey with her friends.
Michelle applied her writing and editing abilities to her career as a paralegal, specializing in complex civil litigation. She also volunteered as a writer, editor, and illustrator for local non-profit publications. She contributed many years of service to the San Francisco recovery community.
Her priority was always her family, in particular her son, Vincent Garcia-Zunno, of San Francisco.
Michelle is her own most articulate narrator:
"When I was a toddler mom read to me.
She sat me on a towel in our house's central patio for sunbaths.
Words sounded sweet when she said them,
Her voice a low flute that built its own harmonies.
Celestial light and pink geraniums swaddled me.
Well-kissed by the sun, I felt happy as a cat curled up with the secret of joy.
Soon I read on my own for the warmth.
When I got older and asked questions mom shot back,
'You don't know what that means? Well, write it down and look it up.'"
From "Mom's Books," by Navarre (Michelle's pen name)
Michelle's final days were at a beautiful hospice in Kenwood, surrounded by rose gardens and vineyards.
A Funeral Mass and Memorial will take place Friday September 30, 2022 at 11:00 am at St. Gabriel's Catholic Church, 2559 40th Avenue, San Francisco. All are welcome.
Please consider a donation in Michelle's memory to a charity of your choice.
(PHOTO BY NORBERT LORENZ)