ORTIZ o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-02-12 published
Cheryl Louise
GLOGOWSKI
By Doris GRANT
Wednesday,
February 12, 2003, Page A22
Graphic designer, wife, daughter, sister, friend, lover of birds.
Born September 7, 1960, in Scarborough, Ontario Died June 22,
2002, in North Sydney, Nova Scotia of cancer, aged 41.
Cheryl, the eldest of three children, was the daughter of Marilyn
and Arthur
ORTIZ.
From an early age, she nurtured things: at
first insects and butterflies, then cats, birds, animals and
always, people. She was instinctively kind.
Cheryl's love of nature developed in the summers spent with her
parents and brothers at their Algonquin Park cabin. Her younger
brother, Adrian, remembers Cheryl teaching him about the forest
and its creatures. The two loved to lie and listen to the wind
they relished the meals their mother cooked over open fires.
Cheryl inherited artistic gifts from her father and created works
from nature at an early age. Family members treasure her fine
pencil-and-ink drawings of animals and birds.
Cheryl attended the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto
and worked there until she met Troy
GLOGOWSKI, the man who became
her beloved husband. She, along with her two Siamese cats and
her horse, moved to Troy's native Cape Breton. They were married
in North Sydney, Nova Scotia in 1990 and the pair bought a home
in the Barrachois hills outside North Sydney, where Cheryl was
in her element feeding the wild birds and animals.
When Cheryl and Troy built an addition to their home, they included
a bird room and Cheryl acquired birds such as budgies, cockatiels,
rosellas, macaws and her special African grey parrot, Cosmo.
People began bringing her sick or unwanted birds and she never
turned them away. "They call me the bird lady now," she would
say proudly. Over the years, five macaws were left in Cheryl's
care, and just a few weeks before her death, she took in a budgie.
She worked as secretary at St. Matthew Wesley United Church in
North Sydney and then moved to
ESP
Graphics where she applied
many of her artistic skills. "I can do anything with these two
hands," she always said, and over the years she proved it. She
was a self-taught computer whiz.
Diagnosed with breast cancer at 36, Cheryl determined from the
outset to beat the disease by educating herself. Unfortunately,
the disease metastasized, but she continued her self-education
and, with the help of her doctors, tried new medications and
alternative medicines. In the end, doctors said, she lived much
longer than most with her type of cancer.
Cheryl joined the local breast-cancer support group. Her knowledge
and attitude encouraged others to take control of their illness.
The group launched its own Dragon Boat to race last year and
hoped Cheryl could paint the dragon's eye -- the symbol of its
spirit and life. However, Cheryl was too ill.
In September 2001, Cheryl and Troy realized their dream of visiting
her brother Ron in Australia. They dove into the Great Coral
Reef and marvelled at what they saw. She wrote home that it looks
like a spectacular, underwater garden.
Last March, Cheryl flew home to Ontario for Easter with her family,
and Ron joined them from Australia. Ron returned with Cheryl
to North Sydney for a week, taking her to her treatments and
doctor's appointments as each member of the family had over the
previous five years.
Cheryl possessed a strong Christian faith and she leaned on it
to the end.
Cheryl was buried on a spectacular, summer day with birds singing
in the clear, blue, Cape Breton sky.
Cheryl would be happy to know that large numbers of birds continue
to visit her feeders at her home in Barrachois.
Doris GRANT is Cheryl's godmother. She wrote this with help from
Marilyn ORTIZ,
Cheryl's mother.
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