INSPIRE
The Gina Rose Montalto Memorial Foundation began as a way to honor Gina’s memory and keep her beautiful light shining.
Many people have been inspired by Gina’s life and her story.
Through these artists, Gina’s light continues to shine in this world.
music
Click the image above to hear ‘Roses’ by Linda Paige
“Roses” by Linda Paige
I didn’t have the privilege of knowing Gina in this lifetime. But, the more I learned about her after her passing, I felt this pull, this drive to carry on her legacy. There is only one way I knew how to do that: through a song.
The lyrics of “Roses” are a letter to Gina, a personal diary entry set to music and released into the world.
Throughout this process, I have gotten to know the Montalto family, a group of kind, wonderful people that I am lucky to know. To know them is to know the love that Gina had in her life, and to know the joy her legacy carries.
Gina’s voice is featured on “Roses” - she can be heard on the very beginning and end of the track, the idea being that the song starts and ends with Gina.
Dear Gina,
I promise.
Love, Linda
Art
Paper Prayers
I thought of you today
I was making cranes
small and beautiful
delicate but strong,
as prayers they go forth
forever.
One touches the water
like a whisper,
the impact profound.
The ripples spread
the story continues,
touching lives
never ceasing,
remembered forever.
~Kaci Wohlers
POETRY
What Could’ve Been
Measure her life in smiles, in scraped knees, in laughter,
in shoe laces untied, in words she learned to read,
in the little idiosyncrasies that stitched together the fabric of
who she was, no picture frame could capture her life exactly:
The way she danced in the living room and drew on scraps of paper
The people she loved and things that made her jump out of bed in the morning
She’s more than a face in the paper, though I’ve never met her before
she’s not a headline, or a murder trial, or police sirens in the middle of the day.
She was going to be a full life. She was going to be decades and generations
They nearly cut her short, into fourteen years, but her spirit remained
She is a collection of memories hanging in the air like stars,
playing on home videos and filling up photo albums,
lingering in tearful conversations and bittersweet holiday traditions, she is
an empty seat at the kitchen table and an untouched mug in the cupboard,
a song that plays on the radio that she used to belt in the car.
She is the whisper of what could have been, against the reality of what is.
If she lived today, what could have been?
If she walked across the stage, if she walked down the aisle
If she moved into the city lights to chase her dreams
If she held a child in her arms and raised a family
Time presses on, never awaiting the answer.
But so her death is not vain, seize life before it charges on
Until you can never ask
what could have been?
- Ella Farias
