- Erin Beverly Johansen
Daughter, sister, friend, fianc?ee, story-lover. Born July 29, 1974, in Ottawa. Died Jan. 15 in Atlanta, Ga., in a house fire, aged 26.
E rin loved stories. Even before she could read, she insisted we repeat The Owl and the Pussycat until she had it memorized.
As she grew older, her reading became increasingly eclectic -- from Vladimir Nabokov, to Margaret Atwood, to the unpublished novels of her friend, Sean Wilson, of the Ottawa Writers Festival.
But stories come in many forms. She read plays and liked to act in them. There was a Montessori School version of A Midsummer Night's Dream and several performances at Ottawa's Canterbury High School, where she studied drama.
She loved the stories told in movies and in music. Erin was musical herself, and learned the recorder, piano, guitar and cello. But she especially liked the music of her brother Damian's bands. She could be found at every concert. And, fiercely proud of her brother, and loyal, she would coax her own friends to share in the pleasure she derived from his songs.
Erin was indeed loyal to all of her friends. While she was still living at home, I realized she was the compass by which her friends would seek direction about the troubles of life.
Not that she always knew what to do herself. One night, Damian and Erin went to a local club. He noticed a girl across the room eyeing him and was worried that, with Erin beside him, he didn't appear available.
He told Erin, "Look more like my sister." She replied, "How do I do that?" He said, "I don't know. Move farther away from me or something." The two started laughing. He never did meet the stranger.
Nor was Erin always loyal to her family. Her younger brother, Christian, remembers the time we spent a summer vacation at a cottage in Vermont. Erin and Damian decided to gang up on Chris by locking him in the boys' bedroom. Chris tried to escape by climbing up the wall, which did not go all the way to the ceiling.
It was, Chris says, he who got into trouble!
She was always independent. As a rebellious 15-year-old, she used to date men guaranteed to upset any parent. The first came bedecked in leather and chains and a score of body piercings. He was also a decade older than she was. A friend advised that if I pretended to like him, the boyfriend would be scared off. So I invited Erin and her friend to a neighbourhood pub one night, just to get acquainted.
Erin never saw him again.
Last Christmas, when we were together for the last time, that story came up while she was talking blissfully about her true love, Bryan Mundy. She met Bryan one night late last year after she had finished her shift as a waitress at an Ottawa bar. He chaired a successful dot.com company in Atlanta, and was in Canada on business.
When Erin and her best friend, Bethany Barron, went out for dinner with Bryan and a business associate the next night, Erin and Bryan fell in love. They became engaged on New Year's Day.
Almost two weeks later, when Erin flew to Atlanta to join Bryan at his grandfather's funeral, the final chapter of her own story was written. Bryan's house caught fire, a result of faulty wiring. The two began dousing the flames. Although a superb athlete, Bryan was overcome by smoke inhalation. Erin tried courageously to drag him to safety, but was herself overcome by smoke just inches from the back door.
Erin would have been embarrassed to read about herself here. But it seems right to tell this last chapter of her story, especially so soon after what would have been her 27th birthday, which she would have celebrated in love. Peter Johansen is Erin's father.
Contributed to the Globe and Mail by Peter Johansen
Published August 6, 2001
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