Wednesday, February 1, 2012

A beautiful love story cut tragically short

Grerp says it best on her blog which begins with: life isn't fair...

I had never heard of Sarah Burke until after her death. It seems obvious that this woman was a beautiful and wonderful human being whose life was unfortunately tragically cut short in a skiing accident. She was 29 years old.

She was training for a super-pipe event in Park City, Utah when she crashed, rupturing an artery in her brain which resulted in a cardiac arrest at the scene. Despite being airlifted to a hospital in Salt Lake City, she died 9 days later after suffering irreversible brain damage.

She was a Canadian freestyle skier who won Olympic Gold (her lifelong dream) and was Winter X Games champion 4 times as well as World Cup winner 5 times and World Champion.

She was also known  for singlehandedly campaigning for the inclusion of women in the ski half-pipe discipline and for pushing for a lot of freestyle events to be included in the Winter Oympics. She succeeded. Women will participate in the half-pipe event in the Winter Games of 2014 in Sochi, Russia, a Winter Games at which Sarah Burke was widely tipped to take Gold.

In 2010, she married fellow freestyle skier Rory Bushfield.



As part of the tributes to her, a short video clip of a documentary called 'Winter' in which she had taken part with her husband Rory Bushfield was posted.

I was struck by how much love they had for each other.
The pride he has for her as the 'gold medal hopeful'.
The way she smiles at him.

I was particularly moved when they described their mutual love for the mountain. And when they both said their wish would be to die on the mountain...

My heart goes out to Rory Bushfield.

And the rest of Sarah's family.

How does one recover from a loss such as this?

May Sarah Burke (Sarah Bushfield) rest in peace.


4 comments:

Lost said...

Oh to love and have lost through untimely death... i feeling i know too well and have surged through me again at the moment when reading your post.... it's been 2 years now, and how to you get through it? by living the life she wanted you to have, love, happiness, fulfillment... no easy feat, i must say.

i still find myself comparing every girl i date to her, it seems death erases all the wrong she has ever done, so she really ends up being on the highest pedestal
oneitis? maybe probably?

But really, living your life to its fullest while honouring her wishes/memory is the best course of action. At least it is for me. I have a strict no marriage mindset, if anyone could of changed that (and was in the process to) was her.

ANYWAYS!!!!!

Sarah's a huge loss for Canadian sports, and she was a huge pioneer in her discipline. An exceptional role model.... My country will surely miss her presence

Spacetraveller said...

Lost,

I am very sorry for your loss.

My condolences...

I just don't know what I would do if I ever found myself in your situation...

Lost said...

Seriously, don't be sorry.
We had very good times together.
Not looking for anyone's pitty, just shedding light on how someone in a similar situation has dealt/is dealing with it.

OffTheCuff said...

Better to die young and leave an awesome looking corpse...