Joey Payeur
The tears come easily to Carol Livingston when talking about the light of her life that was extinguished far too soon.
But the emotions connected to the Fort Frances resident’s memories of her daughter, Susan, are based not so much in sadness as they are in undeniable pride.
Cancer ended Susan’s life in March at age 49. But her dedication to the sport of racquetball will live on thanks to the efforts of two people in high places within the sport’s hierarchy in Canada and another at the university she represented so well.
At the Canadian national championships last month in Burnaby, B.C., Livingston posthumously received Racquetball Canada’s award for the person who best exemplified sportsmanship and contributed to the promotion of women in sport.
From now on, that honour will be known as the Susan Livingston Award.
“I absolutely bawled when I read the e-mail,” a shaky-voiced Carol Livingston said about receiving notice of the renaming of the award.
“I’m so honoured.”
Racquetball Manitoba executive director Jennifer Saunders accepted the award on Susan Livingston’s behalf in not only an administrative capacity, but as a close friend.
It was Saunders and Racquetball Canada executive director Cheryl Adlard who came up with the idea to pay tribute to her with the award.
“It was one of those things where 15 seconds before they were going to present the award, I knew they were going to call me up,” chuckled Saunders, who will represent Canada in racquetball at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto this month.
“It was a pretty emotional time.”
Saunders recalled her first meeting with Susan Livingston more than a decade ago at the end of a tournament in Winnipeg—a meeting that never would have taken place had Saunders had her way originally.
“I was sitting off to the side and the tournament was winding down, and she came up to me and said, ‘Are you Jen? Did you do the schedules?’” she recounted.
“Usually, when someone comes up to you at that point, it’s to complain about something, so I didn’t really want to talk to her,” laughed the 19-time Canadian champion in singles and doubles.
“Instead, she thanked me for running the tournament and for setting up the schedule around her time restrictions,” Saunders noted.
“So this crazy lady who signed up for my racquetball tournament comes up to introduce herself to me and we end up becoming fast friends.”
Saunders, originally from Thompson, Man., and Livingston good-naturedly touted their respective hometowns over each other whenever the opportunity arose.
“We had a little rivalry where we would look for people in the news and always tell each other when we spotted one from Thompson or from Fort Frances,” said Saunders.
“Susan would never stop talking about Fort Frances. She was so proud to be from Fort Frances.”
On top of the award, there also is a fundraising campaign just underway that was started by the University of Winnipeg, where Livingston obtained her education degree.
With every $500 raised by an individual, one of the 1,744 brand-new bleacher seats at the university’s Duckworth Centre recreational facility can have a loved one’s name and a message inscribed on it.
Veralyn Warkentin, assistant to the dean of the university’s Gupta Faculty of Kinesiology, mentioned the idea of raising money in Livingston’s name to some of her former racquetball teammates at the school.
Just over $1,500 has been raised so far, with Warkentin expecting much more to come.
“If every one of Susan’s Facebook friends donated one dollar, she could probably have a whole row with her name on it,” noted Warkentin.
“She had so much life and so much energy, and she touched so many people around her.”
The first seat purchased was inscribed with the following: “In memory of Susan Livingston, former student (1985-90), racquetball star & outstanding friend.”
The other two are slightly different and make references to other aspects of Livingston’s college life, such as her work with campus radio station CKUW.
“I picked out the first three [with more than $1,500 raised so far] and they had to be red ones, because Susan’s favourite colour was fuscia and those ones are the closest to fuscia,” Carol Livingston explained.
She added the ease with which her daughter won people over was one of her most special characteristics.
“She loved everyone unconditionally and didn’t have a bad thing to say about anyone,” she said.
“She always made everyone feel welcome.
“I think there had to be at least a few hundred people that came to her bedside in her last couple of weeks,” Carol Livingston added.
“The hospital was really kind to put aside their rules about only two or three visitors at a time because there would be 10 or 20 at a time wanting to go in and see her.”
Anyone wanting to contribute to the cause can go on Facebook, type in “Students blessed by Susan Livingston,” and look for Warkentin’s post from May 28.
It describes the process on how to donate.
