the last place on earth you probably want to be

My greatest shopping ambassador, confidante, style aficionado, encourager extraordinaire, link to all that is worth paying attention to, my most willing-to-try-whatever, wellington-wearing, pants-swimming friend, Sherri Wood was a torrent of awesome who will forever be loved and missed.

Damn, girl. What is there to say.

I know that nothing I write will do justice to the impossibly-immense spirit and energy of Ms. Sherri Wood, who passed away last night after an 11-month battle with brain cancer, but I also know that writing nothing is not a path she’d chose. And so I write.

I met Sherri three years ago on a very sad day. In the morning I had met up with my friend and business partner, Christina, and we decided to cease publication of our magazine, Inside Mississauga. It was heartbreaking. End of an era. The summer heat was thick and dreadful, and we sat in my backyard smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and sighing heavily. We were happy to have made it as far as we did but sad it had to end. Christina left and I retreated to my bedroom, where I proceeded to knock a full cup of coffee onto my 17″ PowerBook. If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know how much worse this made my already bad day.

I couldn’t tell my mother, naturally, because it was an admittedly stupid and careless thing to do. On top of the magazine, on top of busting my computer beyond repair, the last thing I wanted to be reminded of was how irresponsible I had the capacity to be. I let my older brother, Adam, in on my secret. He took me to the newly-opened, far-away Apple store at Yorkdale, where the a-holes at the “Genius” Bar told me to dry it out for at least a week. Adam eased my disappointment with a dress from H&M. On the way home, we made plans to meet up with Sherri at a Future Shop in Mississauga, where she was getting new speakers installed in her car. When we spotted each other near the DVDs, Sherri was beaming.

It was as if I’d known the girl for years. Of course, we had already heard a lot about each other, given that she was dating my brother. But her hug squeezed me in a way that only my dearest friends had done before. Sherri and I were fast friends after that first meeting, and by the time I’d spent a mere minute with her, I had forgotten all about the magazine and my computer.

Sherri always thought our family was too tight to penetrate, but she secured a spot within our circle quickly, lovingly, us with wide-open arms. Who couldn’t love her? She was hilarious, beautiful, stunningly dramatic in her storytelling and endlessly enthusiastic in her interest in whomever she was talking with. Sherri’s energy made her the centre of attention, the focal point of any room, always, but when she talked to you, you couldn’t help but feel as if you were the centre of hers.

Without a doubt, without contest, Sherri was the pinnacle of cool, of kindness, of anything good you could imagine a person to possess. She was as tenacious and vivacious (perhaps especially so) after her surgery as she was before it — nothing could bring her down. What a shame for the world to have lost such a tremendous being.

I last saw Sherri two weeks ago, at St. Michael’s hospital. Despite her declining health, Sherri still managed to deliver an uplifting rendition of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, she affectionately stroked my ponytail as we embarked on a hug to end all marathon hugs, lambasted me for not having her back as an officer for the Grammar Department, demanded that I not be “gay” when I asked her if I could visit again.

Ahh, Sherri. It sucks that you’re gone. But I could never be more thankful for the short time I had with you. You were some force.

Sherri worked as an entertainment writer for the Toronto Sun. Their kind tributes are here, here and here.

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