From baby to budding model, Monique's young life is remembered in tribute on the Internet

Greg Middleton, Staff reporter The Province

Sunday 5 September 1999

Monique (right) with Kimberly Brooks, who died with her in crash.

One of Monique's modeling photos from the memorial web site.

Baby Monique with mother Fumiyo in 19801 family photo.

Web Site Editorial Footnote: There are errors in this article about this web site. Those errors are marked with footnotes. I chose not to correct the text of the article itself in order to preserve the original article as written.- RJA, ed.

Monique Ishikawa's dark eyes smolder eternally in cyberspace with a love of life that was not to be.

The 19-year-old North Vancouver teen's life was snuffed out, along with that of friend Kimberly Brooks, 18, in a fiery crash at the Peace Arch border crossing on May 30, 1998.

While the Brooks family chooses to mourn privately, Monique's short life is celebrated and her death commemorated on the Internet, thanks in part to a New York man2 who took an interest in the story.

Ralph Arnold3 has created a web site that includes everything from baby pictures, Monique as an infant snuggled up to mother Fumiyo, to recent photos showing Monique as a potential model.

There are even recordings of her voice -- from telling her dad the time as a child, to a more recent goodbye message that is now, under the circumstances, heart-wrenching.

Monique's father, Cat Ishikawa, said he wants people to remember his daughter both as a child growing up in Japan and here as a young girl becoming a woman.

"Our family has been profoundly affected and diminished by her death," Ishikawa said yesterday.

The family has created the Monique Ishikawa Memorial Bursary at Capilano College, where Monique was studying Japanese, and awards at her old high school.

The web site can be found at: www.doctechnical.com/monique4
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Footnotes:

1. The picture was taken in 1978, not 1980

2. I am from Washington, DC, not New York.

3. My name is Richard Arnold, not Ralph Arnold

4. The web site address given is the former site hosted by Doc Technical. The new web site address is http://www.moniqueishikawa.com