Caroline Louise (Carrie) Smith
June 11, 1947-June 19, 2023

Carrie Smith was very clear that she didn’t like long obituaries: she thought them indulgent. So though we have a lot of ground to cover we’re going to keep this tight.

With characteristic grace and good humour, Carrie passed away peacefully on June 19 at home in Toronto with her beloved husband, Charlie, and her kids Rick and Lori at her side. Her room was full of her favourite flowers, including daisies, iris and peonies.

Since her shocking diagnosis less than two months ago with an aggressive cancer, Carrie has often talked of her wish that her family – and everyone, for that matter – take more time to appreciate the gifts they’ve been given in life. “So often, people are moving too fast and miss the moments that matter.” We had one such wonderful moment when, on June 11, Carrie’s family and friends gathered to celebrate her 76th birthday.

Carrie was born in Montréal and in 1980 she and her young family moved to Richmond Hill, Ontario. For the past eleven years, she and Charlie have lived in east end Toronto. Her view of Woodbine Park, with its cacophony of redwing blackbirds and cardinals, was one of her greatest joys.

Since first meeting at a MixMaster event at Victoria Hall in Westmount, Québec in 1963, Carrie and Charlie were best friends and life partners. After supper every night, their kids remember them sitting close together on the steps of the porch, drinking a cup of tea or a glass of white wine. This same tenderness continued throughout an incredible 55-year marriage.

Without a doubt, Carrie’s “happy place” was in the garden. She was the sort of person who, as the soil warmed in the spring, got restless to do her first plantings. The many, many bouquets sent to her condo over the past few weeks precipitated a constant stream of botanical education for her family: “Did you know that Bells of Ireland are the same height as delphiniums?” She had an abiding love of nature and delighted in the shy, small creatures – like toads and salamanders -- that hide themselves in the leaf litter. She taught her kids the simple pleasures of the sea shore in Maine and mountain vistas in the Adirondacks.

She also loved to dance and was often the first person on the dance floor. She and Charlie took dance lessons on Friday nights for years, and her kids will never be able hear a KC & the Sunshine Band song again without it conjuring an image of her dancing in the living room while vacuuming.

And speaking of vacuuming, Carrie was extremely dedicated to the concept. Her precision and need for order sometimes drove her family crazy, but their frustration was tempered by the exceptional family gatherings, beautifully-wrapped presents and ambitious holiday feasts that her planning produced.

Carrie was sensible. And by this we mean she possessed a certain calm and business-like aura. She eschewed drama. She tackled difficulty head on. Her strength and “just roll up your sleeves and get on with it” attitude provided much inspiration to her family and friends in these last few weeks.

The diversity of Canada and her curiousity about the world propelled many of Carrie’s interests. She and Charlie travelled extensively including to France, a country for which she had a particular passion. She loved a good antique market and, always unimpressed with the expensive and the flashy, would inevitably emerge with a bargain -- some beautiful item with an interesting backstory that she’d delight in recounting to visitors to their tastefully decorated condo.

She was adored by her four grand-kids. In her younger years, Carrie was an elementary school teacher, and she delighted in spending time with children. Some of her grand-kids’ first memories involve sitting under a shady tree on a hot summer day making “Friendly Forests” with Nana: an activity she invented that involved constructing miniature ecosystems of moss, lichens and other found items into which were nestled Red Rose Tea animal figurines.

When asked how she would want to be remembered, Carrie said: “as somebody who made a positive contribution to my community.” One of her greatest triumphs was leading Richmond Hill’s insurgent 2003 effort to win the national Communities in Bloom award. More recently, she worked with her condo garden committee to beautify their building. She was an avid walker: and accompanying her meant struggling to keep up as she cheerily greeted local shop owners and neighbours by name.

Carrie is pre-deceased by her parents John and Marjorie Braive and survived by her life-partner Charlie, her children Rick (Jennifer Story) and Lori (Angelina Vaz); grandchildren Zack, Gabriel, Owain and Noah; brothers John (Hilary Clements), Charles (Alicia Keywan) and Peter Roy (Monique Pateneaude); and by her nephews Alex, Jeremy, and Russell and niece Vanessa. She will also be missed by Mica the dog who, it must be said, preferred Carrie to anyone else in the family.

Carrie’s interment will occur at Mount Pleasant Cemetery at 1PM on Wednesday June 28. Her ashes will also be spread in forests that she loved on Mount Royal in Montréal and at Rick and Lori’s cottage properties in Hastings and Haliburton Counties, Ontario. A Celebration of Life will be held at 1PM on Sep. 20 also at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Loud singing of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” will be mandatory.

In lieu of flowers, a donation to the newly established Caroline Smith Children’s Fund at Toronto Botanical Garden would be greatly appreciated. Gifts to the Fund will go directly to bringing vulnerable and underserved children into nature to explore and inspire a love for flora and fauna. To donate, please click here https://torontobotanicalgarden.ca/donate-today/