Family, Friends Urge Mourners To Remember Max Barry For His Vitality

More than 500 people turned out this morning for a memorial service honoring Max Barry, the 22-year-old son of Nashville Mayor Megan Barry who died over the weekend from a drug overdose. He was living in Colorado.

Mourners gathered at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville’s Hillsboro Village, blocks from the Barry family’s home, his elementary school and the University School of Nashville, where Max Barry attended high school.

Former classmates Daniel Meyerowitz and Josh Yazdian remembered Barry has having an infectious love of the outdoors.

“He’d stop me in the hallways and he’s like, ‘Yo, did you see that new skiing or snowboarding video?'” Meyerowitz recalled. “And I was like, ‘Not really interested in that,’ but he made me interested. He was just so charismatic and so full of life.”

Barry went on to attend the University of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, Wash., from which he graduated earlier this year. He was living in Littleton, Colo., when he died.

Singer-songwriter John Prine, a longtime family friend, performed his song “Souvenirs” at the service. Barry’s father, Vanderbilt professor Bruce Barry, also spoke, urging mourners to look past the tragic circumstances of his son’s death.

“We all — of all ages — have made incredible mistakes in our lives. And we almost always walk away from them. And he made one that you don’t walk away from,” he said. “But the point I really want to make here is that the circumstances last Saturday in Denver tell the story of his death and not the story of his life.”