Trish has left us :(
By Xan • Apr 22nd, 2008 • Category: The Savvy Life
Photo by Trish’s dear friend, Tiff
If you feel you can help Trish’s husband, Adrian, out with the considerable medical bills, donations can be made by paypal or mailed to the Greyhound Angel Network post office box. Just put “From the Heart: Tricia Olson-Giles Memorial Fund” in the comments section or with your check.
Thank you!!!
Paypal:
Click Trish’s Orchid to Donate
Mailing address:
Greyhound Angel Network
PO Box 8012
Owensboro KY 42302
Trish was an amazing young woman. She lived through some painful experiences, and had a lot of pain in her daily life, but that’s not what defined her. If I had to choose one quality to describe her, it would be generosity. Or maybe loving. Loving generosity, then!
My own experience with Trish goes back before I made the connection that we were destined to be close friends. I can’t even remember which thing comes first! I had received a commission to do a portrait, but had a long waiting list, and lots of my clients spend the waiting time sending me new pictures of their pets! I had lots of pictures of Bebe and Peatie gracing my computer.
Then, a group of people collected to get a huge creative project together which became the Create for a Cure Virtual Quilt project and auction. Trish labored mightily and well to coordinate all the winners and their winnings. It was a huge job. I’m probably forgetting half of it! But, I still didn’t know Trish that well.
Somehow, we got connected. I finally saw that the hardworking Trish of the Quilt project was also the long patient customer waiting her turn on my list! We had a laugh over that. The first of many! We started playing online Scrabble, which I won handily. It wasn’t fair. I was cheating using an online word-finder! 
When I told her my prank, she just thought it was hilarious, and gave me a hard time about it ever afterwards.
After that, our contact was pretty steady, almost every day, between emails, messaging and finally phone calls. We became good friends, sharing her pain over the loss of her beloved greyhound, Peatie, her joy in her new found love Sammy, her wedding plans, her marriage to the incomparable Adrian, Flippy’s addition to her family, her art projects, her ferrets, turtles, flowers, photography …. Her humor and steadfastness helped me to hang onto perspective about my difficult puppy, Pogo (still in the pack, as of this writing! ), and I watched her cheer up many who were really having black hard times.
All this through her own pain, her own difficulties. She was a shining star even before her passing.
Trish, you are missed.
Mary (Pippin on GreyTalk) wrote this poem, which she graciously said I could share. Get your tissues handy; you’ve been warned!
Flying without wings
mvy 3/1/06 - revised for Trish 4/21/08
Some folks are bound to earth
With chains of tempered steel.
Others with but silken threads
They seem to break at will.
Some folks fly high because they know
The art of air machines,
And some, like Trish, can know the thrill
Of flying without wings.
She’s soaring now, above the clouds
That block my earthbound view.
I celebrate her flight
With a heart that’s torn in two.
She flies alone: no Adrian,
No pets – it’s solo time.
We’re left behind, and yet our friend
Is with us for all time.
We watch her acrobatic flight
With hearts that are tear-dimmed.
She soars, she wheels, she dips and dives,
Then skyward soars again.
We sense her joy at chains released,
Delighting in her flight.
And even though our sky is dark,
She’s flying into Light.
One last approach over her old home,
One last message to send.
A feather-kiss to Adrian,
Then to the rainbow she ascends.
She’ll wait for him to join her there,
For their hearts are so entwined
That even in her new home,
He’ll be always on her mind.
Love doesn’t stop for death or grief,
Or other earthly things.
And when the time is right,
They’ll both be flying without wings.
In loving memory of Tricia Olson-Giles, left us on April 19th, 2008.
Please keep Adrian in your thoughts as he moves into this new stage of his life.
Feel free to share your stories and thoughts about Trish with the rest of us using the comments fields below.
Xan
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Thanks for writing this Xan. It’s a lovely note and I so wish I had spent more time talking to Trish. I did chat with her and exchange messages, but I always wanted to do it more often - never finding the time.
I don’t know if you had a chance, but I wrote a piece about Trish on my blog at http://www.helpmyhurt.com/2008/04/21/help-my-hurt-lost-one-of-its-own-today-rip-tricia/.
Many GTers have come to read it and at the same time, people who never even knew of Trish are leaving messages for her. It’s truly touching.
Trish was a remarkable women who I cared for very much. She loved Adrian so much. So was a great friend and I will always cherish the times we spent together. Big & Rich was a great concert and she loved them so much. My prayers and heart go out to Adrian.
What a lovely tribute for a wonderful friend who will be sorely missed. The poem is perfect.
Trish will live forever in the hearts of those who knew and loved her. I for one am better for having known her and counted her as a friend.
“Friends are an aid to the young, to guard them from error; to the elderly, to attend to their wants and to supplement their failing power of action; to those in the prime of life, to assist them to noble deeds.” -Aristotle
Trish was many things to me during my years of knowing her, but first and foremost, she always strove to be a friend, confidant, and consoler. She gave of herself at all times without regard for recompense of any kind and had a noble and gentle spirit in spite of her body’s frailties.
She was and is a vibrant, caring, lovely young woman who brought light to many and for whom many of us, myself included, are deeply saddened. May flights of angels speed thee to thy rest dear lady; we will always miss you.
[…] Bebe wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI had lots of pictures of Bebe and Peatie gracing my computer. Then, a group of people collected to get a huge creative project together which became the Create for a Cure Virtual Quilt project and auction. Trish labored mightily and … […]
I am a friend of Trish’s in real life - we were going to get together next week for a long-overdue lunch - and yet somehow, I only found out about this tonight through our church… I’ve been in the midst of doctoral work and very distracted, so this has come as a total shock.
She was always so … positive! …. about life with Adrian and life with the greys. We traded stories and photography of our beloved greyhounds - my Jenny-Goober, and her multitude - and cried on each other’s shoulders when things went wrong.
The past several months I have been particularly worried for her with the health issues (something to which we could both relate - and complain mightily about!), but she has been so, well, excited about the paths her life has been taking lately, that she seemed to be balancing the bad with the good, something which was a long time coming.
More than anything, I am just so glad she enjoyed so much of her life these past couple of years. Adrian has been a rock (she has been promising me that she will bring him to Memphis to meet me one of these days), and she finally found the happiness she deserved, even if it was through a bumpy, rough stretch of road. Eight or so years ago I held her at times more than she stood, I think… but recently? She stood on her own, and I was just so proud of her.
::sob:: I just don’t know what else to say. And I keep shifting from past tense to present because this just isn’t sinking in.
Thanks for posting to LiveJournal, by the way. I am glad to know where to come to at least connect about this. I was going to try to make the memorial service tomorrow in Munford, but I don’t think I can do it on my own.
I’m learning so much about Trish that I didn’t know from hearing from so many of her bereft friends, and from Adrian. She was many things to many people. MANY people! That girl knew how to make friends! It’s a testament to her impact on them all that they all have so much to say about her, and such a need to say it, to share the Trish that was special to them. She knew how to make each of us feel like her best friend, valued and loved. I wish she could feel it all flowing back to her the way I see it now.
I first met Trish when she walked into the adoption kennel stating that she wanted to give a greyhound a home. Believe it or not, she was shy and reserved, which she could be around people she didn’t know well. She was much more open on line than in person back then. When she adopted Bebe she found her heart dog. She and Bebe were so much alike and it was the perfect match. I think Bebe brought the “real” Trish out and Trish brought the “real” Bebe out. She had the biggest heart of any one I know and wanted to do so much that her body just wouldn’t allow. When the time came for Flippy to come home she called and asked if I’d take the trip with her. I talked Mike into going because when it comes to a sense of direction, I have none. What a trip. Poor Trish, stuck in the back of the truck with Bebe, Peatie, and big old clumsy Saint. Every time we would stop at a fast food restaurant, Saint would head for the window right by Trish and I would look back and see Trish’s head, under Saint’s belly. He’s a huge hound and she would be laughing her head off!
I remember when she met Adrian, she wrote me and told me all about him and that she thought he was “the one”. He was the one, her rock, the one she could depend on at any time. He loves her so and I couldn’t use past tense here because he still loves her.
The last time I saw Trish was the second weekend after we returned from Sandy Paws. We brought back Purple Peatie for her and she and Adrian came over to pick it up. Knowing she had been having problems with her balance, I put all my hounds away so they wouldn’t knock her down when she came in. They would get so excited to see her. What do you think she did……………she walked right into the bedroom to say “hi” and ended letting them all out, and what do you think happened………………she got knocked to the floor and lay there laughing her head off. She brought Jilly Bean the duck she used when she photographed my hounds as a present, she loved Jilly Bean to pieces.
I am grateful that I was able to speak to her for a time on the phone the weekend before her passing. I am so grateful that the last words she ever spoke to me were “I love you” and that I had said “I love you” back to her. These are the things that fill my memory now.
I miss you my friend.