A Few Words About Ty

Life Rolls On....

I'm Tyler's Uncle Ben….I've been scanning through my memories of Tyler, the good ones and bad ones, the heart breakers, and the head shakers. I have been searching through his achievements and setbacks that would capture the essence of Tyler…As it turns out I was looking in the wrong place….Tyler's essence isn't in the past..it's right here in this room. Over the last few days witnessing the roller coaster of emotions throughout family and friends and his community, Tyler reminds me of the many famous artists who's arts and gains were only truly appreciated after their passing, and their contributions and inspirations just increased in value as time rolled by. One thing is for sure… if Tyler was labeled an artist he would not have used a paint brush…. a broom would have been more of his style…. thank you Tyler for all the great memories and all the future accomplishments you will have inspired…

Lori Ramsay Pineau

As someone who knew Tyler since the day he was born into this crazy family, it broke my heart not to be able to share the memorial to his life with them and all of you. Reading your postings has been very comforting. I remember back a little further than some... Tyler was the definition of “free spirit”. He came to mind when you heard the word “fearless” and was that kid, whose videos and photos you showed your friends and boasted to about his accomplishments—the clever and intricate things he built, the skate boarding (or I guess you’d call it skate-wheeling); the extreme sports and speaking engagements; and his tenacity in attempting to overcome a difficult new life. You spoke with pride of the dedication and time his parents had put in over the past 12 years, never knowing the depths of their commitment or how hard it must have been at times. It wasn't only how Tyler coped with life in a wheelchair that we’d marvelled at—it went back much further—to the once-little boy, who’d been so enterprising and mechanically inclined that before becoming a teenager had already built a successful lawnmower repair business in his parent's (Andy and Heather Deith) yard. He was always that kid—that young man—who made you rethink your own fears and limitations. As a child, I couldn't wait to leave Newfoundland and spend time with my cousins “on the mainland” in Ontario. Being the only girl among the cousins, I felt quite special traipsing after them and getting them into trouble with our Grandmother Ramsay, because she'd never believe I'd do anything 'like that' (whatever 'that' might have been). Tyler’s Dad, Andy, and I have mere weeks between our birthdays and it was days with him and the rough-and-tumble adventures that I saw repeated years later when my own son, Paul Mush Pineau, would get together with Tyler and his other cousins. Tyler was a deceptively quiet boy of the same age, but it never took long before they'd cook up some caper and off they’d all go—I don’t think we really wanted to know all they got up to (probably because the apples hadn't fallen too far from the trees. It was those same trees that caused me to cringe when the cousins zip-lined over our heads behind Andy and Heather’s house, yelling at the top of their lungs. Laughter and fun was still the order of the day when another band of Deith cousins, led by Tyler as often as not, played or strayed off to get into mischief somewhere. It was just a small part of the stuff our memories are made of…