Woman’s spirit lives on in Toronto park
38-year-old mother killed while cycling almost two years ago
Nearly two years after Ottawa native Jenna Morrison was killed in a cycling accident in her adopted city of Toronto, friends and family gathered in the 38-year-old’s hometown to celebrate a daughter, wife, mother, and friend who lived to love.
Morrison’s mother, Darlene Burke, said strong self-identity and steadfast personal convictions enabled her daughter to stand out from the crowd in a world that does its best to make people fuzzy around the edges.
“Although I am deeply proud of you for not wavering and for maintaining all those bold outlines which defined you, I know that you could not have done otherwise. That was who you were,” Burke read from a letter she addressed to her daughter on April 30, which would have been Morrison’s 40th birthday.
Morrison was cycling to her then five-year-old son Lucas’s school for a late-morning pick up in November 2011 when she was clipped by a truck as both made a right turn. She died after getting caught under the truck’s back wheel. She was five months’ pregnant.
Morrison, a devoted yoga instructor and Thai massage therapist, was a deeply spiritual person, said Burke. Her practices, such as cleansing breathers and her daily mantra, The Divine Light Invocation, were part of the memorial
DARLENE BURKE
Jenna Morrison’s mother
at Southminster United Church, where about 100 guests remembered the Canterbury High School graduate for the quirks that brought joy and excitement to everyone she knew.
Gatherers nodded in recognition when Morrison’s lifelong friend Sophia Jackson recalled her taste for burnt toast slathered in butter and giggled when her high school sidekick Shannon Bagg admitted a teenage Morrison would keep a toothbrush in her trendy Cotton Ginny purse to make sure her teased
‘Although I am deeply proud of you for … maintaining all those bold outlines which defined you, I know that you could not have done otherwise.’
bangs stayed “out to there” all day long. It was the ’80s, after all. How blessed we were, Burke said, grateful that with Morrison she was able to live in the moment.
“Jenna knew how much I loved her and I always knew how much she loved me.”
Burke said she is willing herself to move forward after the loss of her daughter and unborn grandchild, but there are still “so many tears” when thinking about the mighthaveand the shouldhave-beens.
Morrison’s husband, Florian Schuck, said he is comforted by the memories he has of his wife, but pained by the fact that there will be no new memories made. Now sevenyear-old Lucas, who cuddled intermittently with his father and grandmother during the ceremony, is already a little man, Schuck said.
Little things help, Schuck said, such as helping the City of Toronto design a reflexology footpath in the city’s Dufferin Grove Park. Made of concrete, a reflexology path incorporates cobblestones of various shapes and sizes. People who walk the path in socks or barefoot will be treated to a therapeutic massage.
Morrison, said Schuck, had been enthusiastic about implementing such a path in Toronto since a visit to South Korea in 2002, where they are very popular. By laying the path, Schuck said he is fulfilling his wife’s dream.
“When people walk over it, she’ll still be massaging feet.”
To donate to the Jenna K. Morrison Memorial Reflexology Path, go to https://torontoparksandtrees.org/jennak.