By Kenneth A. Stewart

The Naval Postgraduate School community celebrated the life of one of its closest family members during a funeral mass for Sponsored Program Administrator Tara Carmilia Hernandez at St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel, April 6, and a touching vigil service the day prior. 

Hernandez is part of an extended NPS family … Her father, NPS Associate Professor and retired Army Col. Alejandro "Andy" Hernandez is a longtime faculty member and an alumnus of the university, and her sister Andrea is also a past employee. Andy Hernandez welcomed family, friends and colleagues who gathered to celebrate Tara Hernandez's life, and thanked the NPS community for their "amazing support" over the past several days.

"Our beautiful Tara was part of a large extended family that loved her to the very end. A middle child until her two younger sisters were later born, Tara was always the peacemaker, the mediator, among her four siblings," wrote the Hernandez family in Tara's obituary. "Talented, bright and full of life and good humor, Tara will be remembered as a kind and fun-loving friend, sister and daughter."

"Tara realized that this world is a temporary place. She was full of life even in the midst of her pain," said Father Dominic-Joseph R. Castro, who presided over Hernandez's funeral mass. 

While Castro recognized the need for grieving, he also encouraged those in attendance to keep their focus on a life worthy of celebration. "Tara once told me that we were created to be gifts to one another. As we grieve for Tara, we need to celebrate the gift that was her life."

Castro and the chapel he leads have strong ties to the Hernandez family. Tara and her siblings celebrated several important spiritual milestones at the chapel, including first communions and confessions.

Laura Anne Ikner-Price served as Hernandez's supervisor for two years in NPS' Research and Sponsored Programs Office. She, like seemingly everyone who knew her, remembers Tara fondly.

"Tara was always positive. She never had anything bad to say about anyone," said Ikner-Price. "I went through cancer myself two years ago. But despite her own illness, Tara used to offer me words of encouragement to lift me up."

Those words of encouragement were memorialized in an e-mail to Ikner-Price from Tara Hernandez, offering her colleague prayers all the while fighting a savage illness herself.

"I'm getting stronger with lots of help from CHOMP. I have all trust and faith in God. I can't wait to be well enough so I can pump some work out. I've been praying for you as well!" she wrote.

Tara Hernandez also worked at the NPS Comptroller's Office, where she was loved and respected by her many colleagues, several of which wore purple, Tara's favorite color, in her honor.

"Tara was a very sharp, bright, co-worker. She was also a student. In short, she was very impressive," said Financial Technician Shana Batlin. "We are struggling to come to terms with her loss."

Outside of work and school, Tara Hernandez was involved in Life Recovery, specifically with those afflicted with Leukemia. She also sponsored the education of two students through the Philippines Humanitarian Foundation.

Tara Carmilia Hernandez is survived by her parents, Alejandro and Mary Geraldine Hernandez, her siblings and large extended family at home, and an even larger one at NPS.