Schoolteacher, sailor, daughter, niece, organ donor. Born Oct. 16, 1972, in Kincardine, Ont., died April 23, 2012, in London, Ont., after a car crash near Kincardine, aged 39.
If you saw Trish for the first time – at a table in a restaurant, jogging, or walking her dog – you noticed. She was not only blond and pretty; she had that indefinable sparkle.
If you met her for the first time – at a party, on the ski lift, in line at a Starbucks – you would be captivated. Her laugh was large, throaty and spontaneous. She was fun. Men fell in love with her. Women found a real friend.
When she donned sunglasses, her movie-star looks were disarming.
Trish grew up in the countryside of Bruce County in Ontario. Last summer she and her only sibling, Andy, vacationed in Koh Chang, Thailand. A photo of her bottle-feeding a baby elephant there harks back to a picture of her as a child, holding a baby lamb at the family farm.
Trish described herself as a tomboy. "I'm not a girly-girl," she would say and laugh. She could pinpoint wild animal tracks to the time of day, and in the next breath she'd be describing a new wine she'd paired the night before with homemade pad Thai.
Trish was an elementary-school teacher with a passion for Special Education. She worked diligently, whether writing a proposal for a government grant on behalf of first nations students or spearheading a dress-up day for the school. She looked forward to having a child herself some day.
Her family was small and close. Last year, she and her aunt organized a surprise birthday for her mom. The last detail, an hour before the party, was decorating more than 100 cupcakes. Trish pulled it off with her usual aplomb.
In recent summers, Trish fell in love with sailing and the life around it. She would talk about the boats she crewed on – Redneck, Flying Circus and Katatonic – as if they were living entities.
Her accounts of hanging off boat sides in high winds, bearing down on crashing waves and hoisting spinnaker sails in regattas were priceless.
At the yacht club, she could tip back rum alongside the saltiest sailors, whiling away the time into the night trading observations and life stories.
Some mornings, walking back to the harbour to retrieve her car and seeing others doing the same, she would laugh and call it "the walk of shame."
The best of Trish was her depth and intelligence. She would give her energy with ease, then retreat to reflect and recharge. She called it "turtling."
When insomnia set in, she spent nights on her BlackBerry messaging with her brother across the time zones in Dubai.
Following a divorce, Trish found love again, but it ended in heartbreak. She ventured back into dating last year, and by this April she was happy and falling in love.
She had a genuine interest in everyone she met, and touched hundreds just by being who she was. Her signature message was: "Live the life you love, love the life you live."
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