together in spirit

One of Kell's favourite quotes was from Anne of Green Gables. She used it as the signature block of her e-mail, and Doreen and John chose to print it on her gravestone.

"Isn't it nice to know that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?"

One of my favourite quotes, also from Anne of Green Gables, is as follows:

"True friends are always together in spirit."

italy... in kell's words

Below are some experts from one of the last e-mails Kelly-Anne ever sent. She was updating all of us on her activities during her Italy trip...

Hello everyone!

I am in Viareggio and have been for the last week. It is a very nice place here, rich so i hear. Our hotel is on the beach, well across from it.

So far I made it to the quarter finals for surf ski. In the quarters I was with all of the aussie stars...I guess you could figure the rest out. However I had a wonderful race.

In the paddleboard and rescue board event and priority event in the pool I was just one spot away from going to the quarter finals: I was really upset with those finishes, however I did really well in each event...some personal best you could say.

The surf for the last two days has been really good...a little too good. I got rocked a few times by the waves...not that yes feeling i was looking for. In the end I surfed some good waves on my ski and paddleboard, even body surfed a bit.

I just ate a great seafood dinner. I shared it with Phil. It was 1 kg for 7.71 euros...all sorts of fish and squid.

I went to Rome on wednesday. It was wonderful. I went to the Vatican too and climbed to the top of the St Peters Basillica. AMAZING to be in that church, it is HUGE.

I will try to write again later.
Love
Kell

on the pitch

This is a memory from a friend of Kelly-Anne's that was left on her online obituary.

"I can still remember the day I met Kelly-Anne. She approached me on the rugby pitch at ConU after our first practice. Kelly-Anne wanted to be my rookie because she said we had a 'connection.' She threw the ball and I caught it and we had executed perfectly. We had a good chuckle at that and many more after that. I believe that Kelly-Anne connected with people everywhere she went and it is by these connections that she will be remembered by forever."

Kell was passionate about playing rugby, both with the Stingers and with the Barbs. She practiced hard, and although she was never the most naturally skilled player on the team, she always made a major contribution through hard work, determination, and sheer will. In the photo below I can just imagine her trying to dissect her performance in the game and wondering how she could improve next time.

Kell spent many a day of her short life involved in various sporting activities. Athletics were very important to her--but they did not define her. Rather, Kell was defined by her desire to push herself to the best of her abilities and excel in everything that she did.

the importance of water

Kell was a lifeguard at Fairview Pool in Dollard-Des-Ormeaux for several years. She really enjoyed lifeguarding and she loved spending her summers outdoors looking out for the safety of the kids swimming in the pool and teaching them how to improve their swimming, synchro, and waterpolo skills. Kell was a very patient and kind instructor.


But summer swimming was a part of Kell's life long before she herself became a lifeguard. Growing up she swam at Thorndale Pool in Pierrefonds, and participated on a number of teams including synchro, diving, waterpolo, and swim team. I can remember the many, many hours Kell, Kim, and I spent trekking up the street to have fun at the pool. In her teenage years, Kell also participated in competitive watersports at the D.D.O. pool. (In a beautiful gesture they recently named one of their conference center rooms after Kelly-Anne.)

When she lived in San Diego, California, Kell often spoke of the beauty of the ocean and told me how much she enjoyed practicing her skills there. She told tales of paddleboarding alongside dolphins and other wonderful sea life.

Kell was also part of a number of synrcho teams and also played competitive waterpolo. For the last several years of her life, Kell was a lifeguard at the beaches of Ile-Bizard and Cap St. Jacques where she would practice her paddleboarding for her lifeguarding competitions. I don't think that I have ever seen anyone in my life get as excited about a Speedo sale as Kelly-Anne.

You would be hard pressed to find someone who loved the water more than Kell did.

I wanted to share this amazing photo of Kell competing in a lifesaving event in Italy just before she was killed. She was so full of adventure, energy, and life; I think this photo makes that clear.

coping with the aftermath

Over the weekend I was reading an article about how Sharon Rocha, mother of Laci Peterson, copes with her grief. I had to put the article down several times because it was so intense. Hearing her describe what happened when Laci was so unjustly murdered makes me physically ill. I haven't read Ms. Rocha's new book, but I plan to one day (when my own pain isn't quite as raw).

My poor Kelly-Anne suffered the same fate at the hands of someone she loved and there is nothing that can ever be done or said to bring her back. It's just plain wrong. My life changed that day in October 2004 when I was told that Kell had been attacked. All of our lives changed.

No one should have to live through this. Not the Drummonds, not the Allores, the Boisvenus, the Cagals, the Crebas, the Kuchinskys, nor any of the hundreds of thousands of other families of murder victims around the world.

new year

Here's a photo of Kell and I ringing in the New Year in 2000.

Kell loved New Year's Eve, and no matter what else was going on in her life, always made an effort to spend it with her close family and friends. When we were little, we would gather across the street at Joyce Douglas's house for new years. I can still remember watching the adults eat Joyce's famous Rum Balls (which, by the way, may have been more rum than anything else!) and crowding around the TV to watch the ball drop at midnight. It remains hard to believe that this is already the second year that Kell hasn't been with us. That she never lived to see the New Year in 2005 or 2006 still brings tears to my eyes.

memories

Here's a photo of Kell enjoying and Italian sunset (and proudly wearing a John Abbott t-shirt).

Press Clippings--Part IV

October marks sad anniversaries
By Ian Howarth, The Suburban


Kelly-Anne Drummond was murdered a year ago today. ‘Her presence is still with us,’ says her mother Doreen Haddad-Drummond.


Haddad-Drummond will remember Kelly-Anne at a private family mass today.
For Doreen Haddad-Drummond, this Oct. 5 is the first in a lifetime of sad anniversaries.
Her daughter Kelly-Anne Drummond, an all-round athlete and achiever, was murdered last Oct. 5. Martin Morin-Cousineau, Drummond’s live-in boyfriend, was charged with second degree murder in the case and is awaiting trial March 6th.

“It’s a very sad time,” Haddad-Drummond said. “The loss is so immense, it’s difficult to describe. Her presence is still with us, but I miss her something awful.” Kelly-Anne will be remembered in a private family mass today, but the borough of Pierrefonds will also be marking the loss of two of its young residents in a ceremony October 23, where a monument to École Polytechnique de Montréal massacre of 1989 victim and Pierrefonds resident, Anne-Marie Edward, was erected in 1992. Borough councillor Bert Ward said the ceremony would include plaques honoring the memory of Drummond and Janet Kuchinsky, who was murdered returning to her Pierrefonds home from her nightly Saturday walk on July 11, 1999. Her death remains a cold case for police.

The monument, located in Grier Park in Pierrefonds, is one Ward describes as “a place, which says no to violence. These women were volunteers and residents of Pierrefonds. We want them to be remembered.”

Drummond will be further remembered in a fundraiser for the Kelly-Anne Drummond Foundation on November 26th with a memorial service at St. Marks Anglican Church in Dorval, followed by a candlelight walk to the Sarto Desnoyers Community Centre. There the Quebec Lifesaving Society is hosting a $45 per person catered event to raise money for lifesaving development, training and equipment. In the months before her death, Drummond competed in the World Lifesaving Championships in Viarregio, Italy, competing against some of the world’s top lifesaving athletes. She was also playing rugby with the Concordia Stingers women’s team.

kell on tv

Here is a still from a video of Kell being interviewed for CFCF TV. She was talking about her involvement in the sport of lifesaving.

Crime

With the recent shootings in Toronto, many in Canada have taken to blaming the United States and U.S. gun violence for the problem. Please read the following article about the situation for a little perspective on Crime in Canada. It isn't as safe as you think it is--and the problem is only getting worse.


"Reaping What We Sow"
By David Frum
National Post (Canada)
Publication Date: January 3, 2006

After a spasm of heart-rending, frightening violence, Toronto's Mayor, David Miller, and its news media want Torontonians to remember one thing: The city is very, very safe. Really.
"Chicago: 445 homicides. Washington D.C.: 195 homicides. Baltimore: 268 homicides. Toronto: 78 homicides." So opened a story in Sunday's Toronto Star.

If there is any problem in Toronto, the Mayor insists, it is traceable to the United States: "The U.S. is exporting its problem of violence to the streets of Toronto," David Miller complained on Dec. 27.

And naturally Prime Minister Paul Martin agreed. "What we saw yesterday is a stark reminder of the challenge that governments, police forces and communities face to ensure that Canadian cities do not descend into the kind of rampant gun violence we have seen elsewhere."
Feel better now? Well, don't. The Prime Minister, the Mayor and the media are hiding crucial facts.

Here are three:
1) America's crime problem has dramatically improved, while Canada's is becoming seriously worse. Toronto's 78 homicides in 2005 appears to compare favorably to the homicide totals of the three American cities cited by the Star. But those 78 Toronto homicides in 2005 represent a 28% increase over the 61 homicides recorded in Toronto in 1995. Meanwhile, the three U.S. cities cited by the Star each achieved dramatic decreases over the past decade: Chicago down 46% from 823, Washington down 46% from 365, Baltimore down 17% from 322.
More broadly: Canada's overall crime rate is now 50% higher than the crime rate in the United States. Read that again slowly--it seems incredible, but it's true. It's true too that you are now more likely to be mugged in Toronto than in New York City.

2) America's crime problem is becoming concentrated in ever fewer places, while Canada's is spreading out to ever more places.

The United States is a huge country, and it will always be possible to find a jurisdiction with shocking crime numbers. The overwhelming majority of Americans, however, live in places that are becoming steadily safer. Since the early 1990s, crime rates have dropped in 48 of the 50 states and 80% of American cities. Over that same period, crime rates have risen in six of the 10 Canadian provinces and in seven of Canada's 10 biggest cities.

3) While American cities and states are adopting anti-crime policies proved to work, Canadian cities and provinces are adopting policies proved to fail.

Over a decade of successful crime-fighting in the U.S., criminologists and police departments have learned some important lessons.

Bluntly: prison works. Criminals do not commit crimes while they are held in prison. Yet a Canadian criminal is 80% less likely to go to jail than his American counterpart.

Putting police on the streets works. Yet Canada employs 25% fewer police officers per capita than the United States.

Enforcing laws against vagrancy, prostitution and drug dealing works. Yet Canada is either decriminalizing or tolerating all three. The right kinds of gun laws work too: for example, extending the sentence of any criminal who commits any crime--down to jaywalking--while in possession of a gun.

Gun registries and gun bans on the other hand do not work. Youth programs do not work. Counseling does not work. Grants to community activists, peer counselors and after-school facilities do not work. The $50-million Paul Martin has just announced for local crime-prevention will be directed to individuals and groups connected to the Liberal party's patronage machine. That money will do nothing to enhance the safety of the City of Toronto. And if it finds its way to individuals or groups who lobby against effective law-enforcement, that money will actually make the problem worse.

It is not guns from across the border that threaten Canadians. It is the weak and cynical policies of home-grown politicians, and especially the Chretien/Martin Liberals. The $2-billion wasted on the gun registry could have paid for more cops, more prisons, more of everything that would protect the lives and security of Canadians. It is the federal Liberal government that releases young offenders back into the community, the federal Liberals who appoint the judges who refuse to punish, the federal Liberals who run the prison system as if it were a summer camp, the federal Liberals who refuse to deport immigrants who break the law, the federal Liberals who have subordinated public safety to ethnic politics.

And then it is the federal Liberals who have the gross and extreme indecency to try to exploit for their own selfish political ends the crime and grief and suffering for which they bear so much of the blame.

quick photo

Here's a cute pic of Kell goofing around in Italy.