Funny Memories--Post Four

Today's funny memory about Kelly-Anne comes from her mother, Doreen, who keeps a wonderful blog over here. Here's an excerpt from Doreen's story. Read the full version here. If you want to read earlier posts in this series, click here, here, or here.

Kelly-Anne really like Ashley McIssac...a singer from the east coast. Kell had a thing for Celtic music. One day, later in the evening, Kell had come home from Waterpolo practice. She had been to school that day, and decided sometime in the morning to leave school to go downtown to find McIssac. He was in town doing a show and Kelly-Anne decided that she would like to have a one on one with him. I was shocked that she just left school without notifying us or her teacher. I said Kell..".how did you do that?" She responded..."Mom, I opened the front door of the school and put one foot in front of the other and left." She rode the bus downtown, walked Ste. Catherine street and low and behold found McIssac walking out of a resto. She spend her quality time with him alone chatting on the street, then made her way back towards home to go to her waterpolo practice...

That sums up Kelly-Anne in a nutshell. She dreamed big and believed things were possible that no one else would every try and attempt. And sometimes, as evidenced by the story above, she succeded!

Funny Memories--Post Three

Read earlier posts here and here...

Kell used to be obsessed with finding out what our former friends and classmates from elementary and high school were up to. This was actually hard in the pre-facebook era! In particular, she loved discovering that someone was "following their dreams." I can remember her being so happy when she found out that someone who wanted to be a pilot in elementary school had actually followed through. She also like to point out that she too was following her dreams to have a career in communications. Here's a pic of Kelly-Anne at our grade six graduation... when her lifelong dream was to become a television newscaster!

Funny Memories--Post Two

Here's the latest in the series of funny Kelly-Anne stories... Click here to read the first post from yesterday.

Kelly-Anne was a lifeguard at Fairview Pool for many years. She really loved guarding--it was the perfect way to combine her passion for athletics with her passion for helping people. Each year at Fairview, the staff would get together for a group photo. Kell loved these opportunities, and would always try and top the creativity of last year's photo. In the summer of 2000, she had the brilliant idea of getting the staff to hop aboard a Montreal city bus to take the photo. Here are the awesome results.

Accidentally on Purpose?!

There are so few "trivial" posts on this blog, that I can't pass up the opportunity to mention that Nic Wright, a dear high school friend mine and Kelly-Anne's, will be starring on the new CBS show, Accidentally on Purpose. The premiere is tonight on CBS. Nic is a very talented actor and I am sure that he is going to be awesome!

Nic actually created the tribute video to Kelly-Anne that was played at her funeral and visitation. He owned a production company at the time and generously volunteered his time to stay up with me late into the night creating the beautiful testament to a life well lived. (Note to self: find a way to get that video on YouTube!)

Anyhow, tune in to the show if you can. I am sure it will be great! I'll leave you with a fun photo of Nic, Kell, and Scott goofing around in Ottawa for Canada Day.

The Kelly-Anne Cup

The annual Concordia-McGill Women's rugby game played in Kell's honor will be hosted by Concordia University on Tuesday, September 29 at 8 pm at the Loyola Campus field on Sherbrooke Street West.

This is a great event and one that Kelly-Anne really would have appreciated. She loved the chance to play a good rugby game and especially loved to try and beat McGill!

The cost to attend this event is $5 and funds raised will benefit WOMEN AWARE, a non-profit that has been helping women who are victims of domestic abuse for over 13 years. Kelly-Anne's mother, Doreen, works with WOMEN AWARE on some of their initiatives.

Funny Memories--Post One

I always find myself down in the dumps at this time of year. I think about Kelly-Anne and her tragic death and how much I miss her. Each year, as we head in to the fall, I am reminded that another year has passed without sweet, fun Kell in my life. And as I celebrate my birthday year after year, I am reminded that Kelly-Anne wasn't around to celebrate her own birthday...

To combat this negativity, I've decided to post a series of funny memories about Kelly-Anne over the next month or two. Check back often for a new story, and if you have any ideas or memories abotu Kell, please feel free to send them my way...

Kell was an entreprenurial soul. She used to generate lots of ideas for projects, crafts, business opportunities, you name it. Whenever she would come a up with a new idea and found herself discussing it with a close friend or family member in a public place she would try and protect her intellectual property by making a loud declaration: "that idea has been trademarked by Kelly-Anne Drummond."

If some nefarious character riding on the bus (or wherever Kell was discussing this) had been planning to steal her idea, surely they would be disuaded by this!

You never know...

Have you been following the news about Annie Le, the brilliant doctoral student from Yale who was found murdered and stuffed into a wall of the campus lab she worked in? It is a tragic story and a very, very sad end to another promising young woman's life.

After a lengthy investigation, police in New Haven have arrested Raymond Clark, a lab tech who worked with Annie, and charged him with murder. This is not a case of domestic abuse--in the end, there's probably nothing that could have saved Annie. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But, according to this article there were plenty of warning signs about Mr. Clark's behavior that should have been red flags for his friends and family.

Mr. Clark's past girlfriend "claimed she had been forced to have sex with him and feared what Clark might do if she broke up with him." A neighbor of his is quoted as saying that Clark was "very controlling of his girlfriend. He wouldn't let her talk to me, or anything."

Do you know someone like this? Are you ever afraid of your significant other? Do you ever just get a "bad feeling" about someone close to you?

If I have learned one thing from Kelly-Anne's death it is this: trust your instincts. If you are worried about someone's character, go to the police station and find out if he or she has a record. If you know someone is abusive and dangerous, take action before it is too late.

Of course it could be different this time. But maybe it won't be. Maybe it will even be worse. You really never know. I can assure you that my strong, confident, and life-loving best friend ignored some serious warning signs. Why did she ignore them? Because she thought things were different and she thought she could handle it. In a million years, Kelly-Anne never thought she would wind up dead.

Obviously, that was not the case. But had she recognized the signs of escalating abuse and gotten out while she still could maybe Kelly-Anne would still be alive today.