On Sunday, June 26th, 2022, we lost our beautiful Élise: wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend. She was a bright and courageous shining star who embraced life with a strong yet gentle spirit, full of grace and wit. She passed away peacefully at Toronto General Hospital with her loving family by her side.

Élise was born September 1st, 1963, in Montreal. She grew up nourished by her close-knit family but challenged by cystic fibrosis, a deadly medical condition.

As a young woman, with the dedicated support of her parents, she travelled to Toronto in 1989 to enroll in the world-leading lung transplant program at Toronto General Hospital.

The hospital’s pioneering surgery team literally breathed new life into Élise, but it was her own indomitable spirit and joie de vivre that propelled her, as she put it, “not just to survive but to thrive.”

Élise studied translation at York University and started her career as a translator at the Addiction Research Foundation (now CAMH). There, she made lifelong friends and met her husband, Gary.

In 2002, the couple started a family when they travelled to Russia to adopt their beloved son, Alex.

Élise would go on to a rewarding career specializing in medical translation. She worked both in the corporate sector for companies including Astra Zeneca, and as a consultant to medical and pharmaceutical organizations in Canada and the US. Élise appreciated both the art and science of translation, which must faithfully navigate facts and ideas between languages with different vocabularies, metaphors and world views. Likewise, she demanded respect for her profession and was irked by examples of careless or, sometimes, unintentionally humorous examples of bad translation.

Friends, travel and food – these were a few of her favourite things, especially when she could combine all three. A generous host, Élise threw lively parties with Gary that featured patio lanterns and oyster stations in the backyard of their home in Toronto’s Queen East neighbourhood. As a proud and caring Mom, she cheered on the exploits of her son Alex in his accomplishments at school and athletics, and she encouraged him to inspire others.

With her playful spirit and humour, her gusto, her fearlessness, Élise chose to thrive. By the end of her life, she was the world’s longest surviving double lung transplant recipient.

Élise is survived by her husband, Gary Timoshenko, son Alexandre Parent-Timoshenko, mother Thérèse Brabant, and siblings Yves, Marc and Johanne. She was predeceased by her father Claude and sister Louise.