Her laugh made 'ears tickle': Family mourns Kayla Rae, found dead in Winnipeg bus shelter

Kayla Rae, 27,laughed like a hyena and lit up a room, drawing people toward her and it's those memories that will live on, outshiningthe tragicending to her life in a bus shelter on afrigid Winnipeg afternoon, says her sister.

"We made so many fun memories I will forever keep close to me," said Kesha Rae, 24three years younger than Kayla.

"She was always laughing and cracking jokes with everyone she loved. Growing up she was the big sister I adored to be."

Joanne Rae, the mother of the two young women, described Kayla's laugh as the kind "that will make your ears tickle."

"She was helpful. She was kind. She had compassion," Joanne said between sobs. "She was just a loving, caring person [who]just got mixed up."

On Monday, as a cold front blew in and temperatures dropped far below normal, street outreach workersfound Kayla unresponsive under blankets, lyingon the floor of a Winnipeg Transit shelter.

The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service was called to the bus shelter at the corner of Tache Avenue and Goulet Street a block from St. Boniface Hospital around 1:45 p.m, where they found a person in critical condition.

Due to privacy issues,no further details were provided by the city, but Kesha said her big sister whom everyone called Birdy died from cardiac arrest.

Kayla was the second-oldest of seven kids from a family inNorth Spirit Lake First Nation in northwestern Ontario,an Oji-Creecommunity just over 300 kilometres north of Kenora.

Kesha was adopted as an infantand moved to Winnipeg. Not long after, her biological family moved to the city as well.

Her two families were extremely close, so she saw her siblings regularly. When she was 12, Kesha's biological family moved back to North Spirit Lake, while she remained in Winnipeg.

"I didn't see Kayla a whole lot but we always talked on the phone, or I flew out to visit my mom and the rest of my siblings every summer," said Kesha.

When shewas 17, her adoptive mother died, so Keshamoved to North Spirit Lake to live with the others.

"I remember [when] we lived in Ontario, [Kayla] was always up to something drawing or watching a show in her room, playing with her hair dyeingor styling itor helping my mom with the motel she runs.

"She loved her siblings and family with all her heart," Kesha said.

"My forever favourite memory is when me, her and my other sister,Kiara, were laughing together and one of my cousins called us a pack of hyenas 'cause of how we sounded laughing together."

Kayla was anhonour roll student and someone who made friends wherever she went, Kesha said.

"She was the type of person to call you her best friend when she first meets you."

At 19, Kesha movedback to Winnipeg. Kayla followed soon after, Joanne said.

Most recently, Kayla was livingat the home of an aunt in the city and helping out at a shelter for homeless people.

That aunt, Loretta Rae, said the two were close and she looked at her niece more like a daughter.

She said she remembers Kayla as someone who was hoping to get her life back on track by going to school and getting a job, and who could always make her laugh.

"She was funny. She was hilarious," Loretta said.

"If you were down and out, she would just put a smile on your face by just looking at you."

It seemed like Kayla had turned a corner after struggles that began around 2015, when she witnessed a fatal hit and run that left her cousin dead on the reserve, her mother said. She started using drugs to numbthe trauma.

"That's where it all began. Everything shattered for her."

For the first couple of years Kayla was in Winnipeg, Joanne tried to encourage her to move back to Ontario, "but the more I pushed, the more I lost her."

So Joanne backed off. During the past couple of years, everything seemed much better.

"She was totally getting out of it," Joanne said. "She's been staying clean."

Joanne visited the citytwo weeks ago to spend time with Kayla and brought along three of her younger brothers. The groupspent time together and shopped at the malls.

"She was OK," Joanne said, her voice falling into cries.

"I feel like I just missed her. Now she's gone."

Loretta too said it she saw no signs of Kayla using drugs again and she's still coming to terms with the sudden loss.

"I usually tell her I love her before she goes. But I didn't say that. I should have said it," she said.

"But I thought she would come back."

Family of woman found unresponsive in bus shelter say she wanted to move back to First Nation in Ontario

2 years ago

Duration 1:57

Kayla Rae, from North Spirit Lake First Nation, Ont. was found unresponsive in a bus shelter Monday afternoon, and later died. Her family said she wanted to come home, but didn't have the proper identification to get on a plane.