In Memoriam: Courtney Watson

Not everyone paid the same price for items at Courtney Watson’s garage sales. People looking… Not everyone paid the same price for items at Courtney Watson’s garage sales. People looking for cheap clothes bought a T-shirt for $1, while disadvantaged mothers trying to afford clothing for their children bought eight T-shirts for $1.

She never stopped giving or thinking about others, even after her death.

Courtney, a freshman at Pitt and an organ donor, died in Alabama on Dec. 22 from injuries she suffered in a car accident. Her kidney, liver and corneas were donated to others, and her heart valves were successfully transplanted to a child, said her mother, Christine Watson.

“It brings me comfort to know that she is keeping others alive,” Christine said.

Christine remembered when she would talk on the phone to Courtney as she waited at the bus stop and said that her daughter would always give money to people who she felt needed it.

Courtney, who attended middle and high school in Alabama, quickly became interested in theater, Christine said. Her performance in a high school play won her an all-state drama award in 2006 when she was a senior.

“She had a great imagination,” Christine said. “She always said the Cathedral of Learning was Hogwarts Castle.”

Known by her friends at Pitt for her spontaneous and outgoing personality, Courtney’s friends said that there was never a dull moment when they were with her.

When her close friend, Sam Sciarrillo, was thinking about getting a tattoo, Courtney decided that she would go with her friend and get one for herself. The night before the two went, they did some research on the Internet, and Courtney settled on a Latin phrase that said “My strength comes from heaven.”

“I was starting to back out, but Courtney convinced me,” Sciarrillo said. “She told me to ‘Seize the day,’ and that if I didn’t get it now, I’d never get it.”

Her friends also said that she was passionate about everything she liked, from art to Chanel to music and candy.

Dana Stangeland, another friend, said Courtney would go to the Carnegie Museum of Art every Sunday to look at paintings, knew every fashion trend on the runways, could recite all the lyrics of her favorite band, Death Cab for Cutie, and always wanted to eat peanut butter M’M’s.

“Once she liked something, it was like, she became obsessed with it,” Stangeland said. “But in a good way.”

Always the life of the party, Courtney loved attention. For Halloween, she donned a cab driver’s hat, a mod skirt and big hoop earrings for her costume as Andy Warhol’s muse, Edie Sedgwick.

“She wanted people to ask what she was,” Stangeland said.

But one of the things that Sciarrillo loved the most about Courtney’s personality was her enthusiasm for life.

As the two friends walked down Forbes Avenue one day, a light snow fell on them. Courtney turned to Sciarrillo and excitedly asked if it was a blizzard. Sciarrillo, who knew Courtney was from Alabama and wasn’t used to the snow, laughed as she explained that this weather was mild, and that she’d know if it was a blizzard.

“There was a certain childlike excitement that could be seen while she smiled and laughed walking down the street that day,” Sciarrillo said. “It was just always so nice being around that kind of positive energy.”

The last time Stangeland saw Courtney was on Dec. 16. They spent their last night together watching Courtney’s favorite movie, “The Godfather,” and eating pumpkin rolls. The movie had a sentimental value to her because, as a child, Courtney had always watched it with her father.

“It was probably the best goodbye I could have had, since the night was filled with people she loved and things she loved,” she said.