WARE – Cynthia Lynn Brandts, 51, took her leave Jan. 14, 2013.

She is survived by her daughter Elisha; her father and step-mother, John and Linda; her mother Susan; her sisters, Debbie Bettag (WNS ’79) and Melanie Murphy; and her brothers, Mike, Bob and Brad.

Cindy partially negotiated the Amherst school system, attended Williston Academy and after a brief stint at Emory College in Atlanta, earned first her bachelor’s degree, then her master’s degree in business administration at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Math and analysis, be it business, inventory, marketing or whatever, was her forte.

Calling the Pioneer Valley home, she worked for Microcal, Inc., R. R. Donnelley, and James River Graphics.

By any measure, Cindy was a trip. Life, as filtered through her presence, was impossibly full. While some might have seen her embracing of extremes as disturbingly untenable, others found her rush toward experience to be alchemic; she transformed darkness to light, despair to hope, anguish to laughter.

She collected antiques, loved to fish, was a stalwart adventurer and in her words, had always been “an outdoors gal, at heart.”

In the final months of her life, she discovered the writings of Eckhart Tolle and stepped into a world of which she’d been catching glimpses since early childhood. In awareness, and with intention, she focused the wisdom she’d earned through trials and traumas, and came to extend also to herself the infinite generosity she had always extended to others.

A private funeral was held at Douglass Funeral Home, in Amherst, on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2013.

To sign a Guest Book, express condolences, share memories and read other obituaries, go to www.gazettenet.com/obituaries.