Golden nuggets among the sand
Reflections on the solid gold heart
and soul of Ginelle Doré Toussaint
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expanded
PDF version
As
I was putting the finishing touches on the following tribute to Ginelle Doré
Toussaint in 2017, I felt an inexplicable urge to visit an old email account I’d
been contemplating cancelling due to its largely dormant status.
With emails dating back nearly a decade, I was tempted to hit DELETE ALL. But
something made me reconsider. Instead I typed in “2013” -- the year when Ginelle
had taken a portrait of her father to accompany a story I’d written about him.
Like an old prospector panning for gold, I was blessed to discover a few
precious nuggets among “the sand” in my electronic IN BIN.
With
permission from Ginelle’s family, I’m reprinting excerpts on the following page
from two of the uplifting and insightful messages I received from her iPhone
that October. I didn’t realize at the time how many balls Ginelle was juggling.
In hindsight, it’s a marvel she found the time and energy to compose them.
But perhaps the greatest testimonial to Ginelle’s
solid gold heart and soul are found above and below in the final emails she sent
to her mother-in-law and her father just days before her spirit passed over on
December 27, 2016.
Kindly
click here to view PDFs of richly illustrated tribute
that also includes coverage of a recent “Toussaint 19” event to aid Ginelle’s
Family Fund.
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Ginelle Doré Toussaint
Remembering a solid gold daughter,
sibling, wife, mother and volunteer
Ginelle Doré Toussaint made a lasting impression on my writer’s heart when she
responded to an SOS from my home-based office in September 2013.The Saratogian had assigned me to prepare an article about her father, Stephen R. Toussaint, who was being installed as Grand Knight of the Saratoga Knights of Columbus. While my deadline allowed ample time to research and write the feature, securing a portrait of the leader to accompany the piece was another story entirely.
Because I was then still using a film camera, negatives had to be sent to a lab before I could scan, upload and email photographs to my editors. Upon learning of my predicament, Ginelle offered her digital photography skills to aid this tech-challenged Damsel in Distress.
Despite her hectic schedule (Ginelle was busy earning the REAL LIFE equivalent of a PhD in Early Childhood Education at the time), she came through in a manner befitting the legacy of her maternal grandfather George S. Bolster.
It was Bolster who took the 1975 baby portraits of Ginelle on the facing page. And, in a Circle of Life moment, the newspaper awarded the picture an adult Ginelle took of her father a Front Page placement. Ginelle wouldn’t hear of receiving payment for her contribution – which she subsequently donated for reprinting in this book.
Although physically weakened by cancer, Ginelle’s caring, giving, nurturing spirit remained strong. Upon learning that Ginelle’s heart and mind had continued to overflow with concern for the well-being of others right up until her untimely December 27, 2016 passing, I found myself reflecting on a verse by Emily Dickinson:
“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Into his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.”
Click here to read entire PDF tribute to Ginelle’s brief, but purpose-filled, life.
