Tracy Harrington Barbas died of brain cancer on Monday. Her life was celebrated during a funeral Mass in Brockton on Friday and she was later laid to rest at the Melrose Cemetery.
BROCKTON – The officers, standing side by side, lined Commercial Street in front of the police station. Then, in unison, they raised their hands and saluted as a hearse carrying fellow officer Tracy Harrington Barbas passed the station Friday, on its way to Our Lady of Lourdes Church.
There, longtime cruiser partner Enid Louis followed behind the casket, carrying Barbas’ police hat to the front of the sanctuary and placing it atop the casket.
Barbas’ fellow officers at the Brockton Police Department, several law enforcement officials from local agencies, dozens of family members and hundreds of friends filled the pews on both sides of the church.
They were there to honor Barbas, an 18-year veteran of the force, at a Catholic funeral Mass after she died of cancer Monday at the age of 42.
“To some, in this community of Brockton, Tracy Barbas is but a name on the wall – a woman who died at the age of 42 of cancer, a woman whose obituary is read in The Enterprise,” said the Rev. Philip Dabney, the funeral celebrant. “But, to us, it’s different. All of us here in this church today have cause to remember Tracy. We run our fingers over her name and we look at her picture on the program and we pause, we sigh and we weep, and we smile, and we remember.”
Louis led the procession, which went from Russell and Pica Funeral Home to the police station and passed the Fire Department station on Pleasant Street, into the church. She followed the casket, which was carried by fellow Brockton police officers who acted as pallbearers. Police Chief John Crowley and Mayor Bill Carpenter followed Barbas’ cruiser partner, and her family, led by husband Chris Barbas, father James Harrington and mother Karen Harrington, entered the church next.
Two of Barbas’ nieces, Hailey Cahill and Megan Harrington, read scripture during the funeral and her father, a former Brockton mayor, led a prayer for fellow law enforcement officers and others who impacted Barbas’ life. Nancy Gustafson led the congregation in several songs during the ceremony.
The Rev. Dabney’s homily focused on the story of Lazarus from the Gospel of John. The priest said the story was especially significant because Jesus found Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. Friday was the fourth day since Barbas’ death.
“She was tenacious in reaching goals that some say she could never achieve – one of them, we all know, is her becoming the first woman in the Police Department to be appointed sergeant and supervisor,” Dabney said. “To those of you here from the Police Department who worked with her, you know how much she loved her job and how much she loved working with you.”
Louis spoke about her friend and cruiser partner at the end of the funeral. She met Barbas, then Harrington, at the police academy in 1999. When all the recruits lined up, Louis was first called to the middle of the gym for not having her hair tied back properly and for wearing clear nail polish. Next thing she knew, Harrington was called to the middle of the gym – for those exact reasons.
“I remember thinking, ‘Yes, she saved me,’” Louis said. “The instructors then had us line up in order of height. Right next to me, the next shortest girl in the class, the one who saved me in the gym, was Tracy. It was here, the police academy, where Tracy and I became not only academy mates, but friends. For 18 years, we sat in training, in classrooms, in the cruiser together – she on my left, me on the right.”
Both women described themselves as short, which led to them creating a defensive plan of attack early in their career together. If they had to deal with a combative suspect, their plan was always that Louis, who was two inches shorter, would go low – and Barbas would go high.
“As we’ve always said, every time we got out of the cruiser, I’m here low and you have definitely gone high,” Louis said.
A longtime friend, Christopher Shaw, also shared memories of Barbas at the Mass. He said of all the years they knew each other, he was wrong in Barbas’ eyes more than 1,200 times – but she was only wrong once, leading to laughter from some of Barbas’ family.
When they were in their early 20s, Barbas, Shaw and a group of other male friends would sometimes rent a house on the Cape. He said they always thought “they were something,” trying to show off. That was until a group of guys with “abs on abs” would show up. Then on, they referred to their group of friends as “Flabbercrombie and Bitch,” a play on a clothing store’s name. The saying drew laughter from the entire congregation, and Shaw jokingly apologized to the priest for swearing during the funeral.
“Tracy will leave a void in everyone’s life who ever met her because she was such a tremendous person,” Shaw said.
Barbas was laid to rest at Melrose Cemetery in Brockton.