GRAND RAPIDS, MB — Almost a year and a half has gone by, and yet Debra Perysian has still been able to keep her daughters memory alive.
"She had a good life," said Debra. "She was engaged you know, and now she's gone. Just like poof, she's gone."
The Muskegon mother of two and her family were at a birthday dinner for her son when they stopped by Meijer.
Debra said her daughter wasn't feeling well, so she stayed in the car.
When Brittany's fiancée and family came back out, she was gone.
"Then he started calling me, he called the police," said Debra. "Then he told me it was serious."
After seeing security camera footage, Debra said she saw her daughter "walking like a zombie" on US-31 near Sternberg Road during that night's snowstorm just before she was hit. Looking, as she described, "completely out of it."
She said her daughter did not use drugs or drink because of a previous gallbladder surgery.
Debra suspects her daughter suffered from toxic shock syndrome but police ruled her death an accident. There has been no official ruling, according to Debra, on what caused her to wander into the street.
"They said it was accidental. But she wasn't able to donate her organs because they're full of toxins," said Debra. "So that kind of pushed my brain into thinking toxic shock syndrome."
Now, Debra keeps Brittany's remains in her Muskegon home, in an urn that reminds her of the love and joy she showed everyone.
"Brittany liked pineapple," said Debra. "She called me her pineapple supplier. So every time like, Mother's Day, birthdays and Christmas I always got her pineapples. And in Brittany's memory, I got a pineapple."
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