I first met Lisa at the ripe old age of 22 months when Mom & Dad brought her home from Toronto East General. She was my first friend. It’s true – in 22 months I couldn’t make a single friend, but Lisa saved my social life. I had a sister and a friend.

You all probably know the beautiful, well dressed Lisa – the woman with poise and professionalism who could enjoy a good laugh with anybody. She could talk you into or out of all kinds of things and you would walk away wondering how it happened.

Lisa was always quite accomplished - setting up and managed a new Fabricland location and running it successfully for a few years; being the business manager of North Toronto Hyundai where she used to drive home the high end trade ins (can you imagine, she worked at Hyundai, but came home in a Jag) and she ran the production of millions of dollars worth of product for Canada’s largest lingerie manufacturer. All this before having her two beautiful children.

I marvelled at her fearlessness and her courage to keep trying to improve herself. When she was young, she would tell me that she faced most of her challenges terrified of the outcome – but she did face them and usually conquered them. I think conquering fear became her drug of choice – she loved to overcome obstacles.

When she landed at Glenway Country Club, she had found her home – and wonderfully, her soul mate. The story goes that Lisa had been working at Glenway for a little while before even meeting Gary – but they did meet and the rest, as they say, is history! Lisa seemed to thrive with Gary – they did so much together and enjoyed every minute of it.

I’m sure everyone here knows that Gary is not Lisa’s first husband – and while many families would try not to mention things like that – I think you should know that even though there were some failures along the way, Lisa managed to overcome again. Our family is an excellent example of “blended”. Rick is the father of Lisa’s children. Even though the marriage didn’t last, they have always stayed close. I remember Rick telling the story of one of the times he and Lisa had to get together to talk about the kids – they went for dinner at a local restaurant and people they knew saw them there having a nice time. Rick was laughing wondering what kind of gossip might be going around. But when it was time for Lisa & Gary to wed right here at Wooden Sticks – it was Rick who drove the golf cart carrying the bride to her nuptials.

She also enjoyed good humour – as a young mother, she would be driving Corbin and Lara all over the place. Lisa used to repeat a little joke that our Dad told us any time a bug would hit the windshield – she would say, “he won’t have the guts to do that again”. She phoned me one day laughing because when the bug hit the windshield that day and she once again said he won’t have the guts to do that again – and the kids actually got the joke and laughed and laughed. Lisa’s kids are quite accomplished themselves – both graduating college and university; both working in their chosen fields and doing well. It was clearly their upbringing that set them on the road to overcome. Those wonderful family times together, like the Easter Egg Hunt that a Delta Force Team could not complete. And the prize winning Halloween costumes that were carefully and meticulously and lovingly crafted in Lisa’s sewing room. I don’t want you to think everything always worked out - Lisa was smart enough to know that nobody could succeed at everything. Hence the reason Lara is not a figure skating star and Corbin is not an Olympic swimmer.

But there was a side to Lisa that you may not realize. For example, if I had not known Lisa, I would never know how to properly eat a cookie while maintaining perfect lipstick. A technique that includes specific lip location on the cookie and a certain activity with the tongue that can be demonstrated later on Aunt Mabel’s Oatmeal Cookies.

Although she was meticulous with her appearance – always sporting perfectly coifed hair, flawless nails and clothes that made you wish you could lose that extra weight; Lisa enjoyed laughing about the funny things going on with her. Like trying to glue down her toe nail that was falling off so she could still wear sandals choosing instead to let the nail fall off in boot season. She also relished going into gory detail about the life cycle of some burn she got from the oven. I mean gory detail – like how much it oozed, what colour the ooze was, how much it peeled, etc… And if you happened to be there, she would gladly show you. I won’t mention the times she would save some yucky piece of bodily something to show you later and see how much it freaked you out.

This was the woman who woke up in the hospital just over 3 years ago and found a tube coming out of her head and had no memory of how she got there. An incredible shock, to say the least. Then a horrible diagnosis of brain cancer – the worst kind. But she had learned how to triumph when failure seemed to be closing in. She had taught herself how to learn new things and how to win at them. She had made a wonderful family full of people who loved and supported her. Most importantly, she had Gary – her soul mate. The man she truly loved. She knew that together they would make it through this, too. Since her diagnosis, Lisa and Gary travelled to California – more than once, if I’m not mistaken – they travelled to Florida – as recently as this past January for Mom’s 90^th birthday party. They made different local trips with the kids. She even managed to enjoy some shopping trips to Winners with one or both of the kids. Right up until just a few weeks ago, Lisa and Gary still went out to the movies – an absolutely favourite thing to do. Mainly because you can’t golf at night. But when it became apparent that the cancer was not giving up – with great courage, Lisa decided to gather all her friends and loved ones together to celebrate her life. She hand wrote the invite list herself and oversaw all the details. She coifed her hair and did her nails and put on a beautiful dress and enjoyed seeing everyone who came. About 100 folks helped to celebrate our wonderful Lisa.

Now we have to say goodbye. She defied all the odds and did it a gracefully as anyone could. On her last night here, she had a lovely evening with Gary and Corbin, they were holding hands and watching a movie. She would communicate with hand squeezes and the look in her eyes. After the guys went to bed, she fell asleep and dreamed of walking freely up a beautiful hill covered in the lushest green grass and the prettiest meadow flowers. The air was so fresh and clean as she climbed higher. The sun shone brighter and brighter, and the wonderful feeling of love and joy that was all around – what a beautiful dream, she thought, but somehow, it seems more real than a dream. Yes, I think it is real – I’m free, I’m really truly free. That beautiful smile that we all loved returned to her face and she began to run up the mountain laughing like a school girl.

At least that’s what I think happened…