Isabelle Murray.
My mother passed on August 19th in a tragic hit-and-run accident. She was doing what she loved, snorkeling and free diving near Saint-Tropez.
She was my protector, and from the youngest age, I had to be hers. She got me through school, built me strong and wise so that I could lead one day. We shared a passion for music, where both our bedrooms were at all times vibrating nightclubs. I discovered the ocean and its inhabitants thanks to her, specifically, her best friends, the sharks.
I took her to Marco Carola for Mother’s Day, and we would swim with hammerheads on her birthday. Next up were great whites; your favorite. Moments before she passed, she had just finished her 194-page thesis for her master’s degree on the “Autecology, Management, and Conservation of Sharks in the French West Indies.”
Mom was a nerd. My nerd. But she was also a gorgeous nerd. She was the most gracious and elegant person in any room she walked into. She was the queen of my family and looked out for everyone. She was everything to me and will forever be a part of me.
I was lucky to have told her over the summer that my music festival would be named after her, the first of many projects I would do in her honor.
My mother was a lioness, a queen, a mermaid.
My life has been marked by trials; a complicated upbringing, a near-death experience where I spent over two hours bleeding out under a car, over a dozen surgeries under general anesthesia, and the most important woman in my life murdered just a few meters away from me.
I have as many scars on my body as I bear on my heart.
However, it is not for that reason that I have let pain and darkness dictate my life; nor will I moving forward.
I use my pain every day as fuel.
Fuel to accomplish my mother’s dreams as well as my own, and to build a legacy of strength and purpose that endures.
I consider myself superhuman, not just because of the trials I’ve faced, but because of the love and strength my friends and family have given me over the years and continue to give.
I survive thanks to you.
