Never did I expect that sitting in a stuffy University College (UC) classroom chair, waiting for my introductory British Literature class to begin on a grey, winter morning, my life would be enlivened. As the clock ticked closer to the start of lecture, the antiquated brown doors creaked open, and Fabienne walked in. 

I vividly remember her gliding through the dull classroom with an incredible knee-length, baby blue coat with feathers: one that was just so quintessentially ‘her’ that I dubbed her ‘U of T’s Penny Lane.’ 

Including the first day I met her, she’d always introduce herself to others with a smile and a line: “My name is Fabienne de Cartier, but I’m not French at all. I don’t know why I was named this way because I need to explain every time I introduce myself.” 

She’d feign annoyance at the verbose clarification she seemed to think was required for her to avoid people asking if she could speak French. But I didn’t mind at all. Listening to her, even for the first time, I was already wishing she would say more — and I instantly realized that I wanted to be her friend. 

I recall feeling particularly grateful for The Varsity at the time, because working there gave me the honour of having something this beautiful person could speak to me about with intrigue — this was exciting for me. Though distracted by the idea of a burgeoning friendship, I also noticed Fabienne’s inquisitive nature rooted in an undiluted adoration for her life and the lives of others. She embodied a level of hope so pure it was almost anachronistic in this seemingly misanthropic day and age.

Fabienne transferred to McGill University after her second year to study English and Political Science, and later worked at its student newspaper, The Tribune, as a News Editor. This was to be expected, as her passion for journalism had long been evident, marked especially by her words and illustration in The Varsity’s winter 2023 Raw magazine. In it, she wrote about holding dialogue with people with disabilities — a beautifully hopeful piece reflecting on living as an amputee after being diagnosed with osteosarcoma at 13 years old. 

Then-Features Editor Alexa DiFrancesco, who edited Fabienne’s magazine piece titled “Being on the right foot with someone who’s missing one,” remembers Fabienne’s love above anything else. 

“The thing that stood out the most about Fabienne to me was her love for existing,” DiFrancesco wrote to The Varsity. “She was so happy to go through the editing process, no matter how tedious it was, and she seemed so excited to be putting something into the world.”

“When she wrote about her story, she presented herself as someone who was so in love with life and excited,” she continued. “It was so evident that she loved living, that she loved interacting with other people, and that she loved loving other people and her surroundings… I can only imagine the strength it took for her to live that way and I am so thankful that a piece of her lives in Raw.”

Her irresistibly raw hopefulness carried through in the months after she was hospitalized when her cancer recurred in her lung at the end of 2024. As I sat in The Varsity office late at night, she would call from her hospital bed, listening through my tears while her voice remained unwavering. Once again, and as always, she was the bigger person in our friendship. 

She persevered with hope even as she underwent chemotherapy, calling me to ask about my work as The Varsity’s Editor-in-Chief and to seek feedback on her platform to run for the same role at The Tribune in the upcoming year. I now realize that her matter-of-fact way of speaking about her plans for the upcoming year instilled in me an infinitely expansive sense of hope that I had no idea how to sustain without her. 

Her hope painted me, as it did for so many others who love her. Every once in a while, when I rushed outside during my work this past summer to answer her call, she’d apologize for ‘bothering’ me. But she didn’t realize that every call from her was reminiscent of the day she creaked the UC classroom doors open and flowed into the room with her coat, her light, her hope. Even as her health deteriorated by the day, I still felt more hopeful with each call. 

And for a while after the summer cooled down, I had no idea how to cling to the hope she wanted to leave behind. She had wanted us to remain hopeful — but when hope itself was kept ablaze by her sparking it, how were we supposed to continue seeing its light without her? The strength that made Fabienne so hopeful, I never learned how to emulate during her fleeting time here, and I didn’t believe I could crystallize hope when there’s a dearth of it in her absence.

Some many nights after, things remain grey without her light. I still vacillate between ascertaining the mortality of hope and wondering if hope can reappear. But what’s left with us here now seems to be the hope of hoping that hopefulness will appear — the hope to hope for hope. And in this way, Fabienne — as hope — exists as a value. Fabienne is a value within me. And, to borrow a much wiser man’s words, the question of keeping this value isn’t a matter of viability, nor is that important, nor is it better to last than to burn by keeping it. I’m honoured to be one of countless people who have Fabienne, our hope and value, burn within me. 

Donations in Fabienne’s honour can be made to the Fabienne de Cartier Award for Poetry at www.fabiennedecartier.com. In partnership with the Ontario Arts Foundation, the award will recognize young emerging Ontario poets for their courage to experiment and commitment to artistic expression.