Tribute

Allison passed away November 17, 2022 after a 6 month battle with Melanoma. Born and raised in Victoria BC and a graduate of the University of Victoria, Allison was predeceased by her parents, Robert and Anne Currie. Moving to Salt Spring in 2009, Allison ran her project management and design company creating beauty for many satisfied clients. Simply put, Allison was a dynamo. She excelled at everything she did: buying and renovating homes, catching wind on her kite board, cycling long distance and both competing and winning at every sport one can play on a court. She was courageous, witty, wickedly intelligent with an endless kindness and thirst for life.

Thank you to the BC Cancer Centre, the Royal Jubilee Hospital, the Lady Minto Hospital and the various paramedics we met along the way. A special thanks to Dr Holly Slakov and nurse Israel who restored the power and dignity taken from Allison by this illness. Before her passing, she asked that I include a poem I had written for her about loss. She will be deeply missed.

I once believed that time could cure any pain of the heart. If enough seasons passed and prayers were spoken, the sting would leave as you did today. Even the simple memories of all those moments we shared sit in my stomach like a knife. Still and cold and ready to pierce my insides if I breathe.

But your image, who you were, who you were forced to become hang like a noose around the neck. Guilty only of wanting time. How much loss can one person swallow and you and I endure. How many things in this cruel world have the strength to break twice?
I squeeze your ring in my hand. It feels real there somehow, absolute, like a secret we share. Tucked away with what it means to be a friend. A companion. For me, the one who survived.

Even on opposite sides of suffering, I saw you as an equal. A sister. But the question remains and will all the rainy days of my life, was it enough?

What would it be like to talk once more, as we had countless times. I carry that wonder in my thoughts and the creases of my heart. And in this moment, as you lie forever still, I am humbled. Not by the force of life and death but by your hope of being seen.
I saw you.

Nothing is more tedious than the infinite sound of silence and one wisdom I know is that we are far more than the thoughts we have and the words we speak. My other “wisdoms” I will keep to myself.

And like the fettered tie of the sun and the moon, our paths tracked each other. With the cracks in this brutal truth drawing marks between our lives.

My truth? The lines of your face will never fade. From dawn to black, as the sand calls home the tide and in the vastness of eternity, I will remember you. Just a girl, as I am just a girl, your hand placed in my hand.

I hear your voice even now and see the light in your blue eyes. So take this rest, my dearest, dearest friend, for it only comes once.
Love Kelly