Beloved Dis­abil­i­ty Rights Ad­vo­cate and for­mer me­dia work­er Tra­cy Hutchin­son Wal­lace died on Sun­day af­ter bat­tling stage 4 can­cer.

Tra­cy once worked at both the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work (CCN) with TV6 and at Guardian Me­dia un­der CNC3. Most re­cent­ly, her ad­vo­ca­cy work was done wear­ing the hats of Autism Spir­it, Bethes­da, the Con­sor­tium of Dis­abil­i­ty Or­gan­i­sa­tions (CO­DO), and Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty TT.

Giv­en her health con­di­tion, Tra­cy pre­dict­ed her death in a piece she wrote for Catholic TT in Ju­ly 2021, de­tail­ing how her life has changed and how she in­tends to spend her re­main­ing mo­ments.

In a sec­tion called “the last year of my life,” she made the now ac­cu­rate pre­dic­tion.

“Sounds over­ly dra­mat­ic. But it may not be. Se­ri­ous­ly. I have Stage 4 Can­cer; which means can­cer has spread from my breast to my spine and liv­er. And sta­tis­ti­cal­ly (US Sta­tis­tics ob­vi­ous­ly, I can’t find any­thing ap­plic­a­ble here), that means any­time be­tween Oc­to­ber ’21 through Oc­to­ber 2022, adieu, say­onara, Elvis has left the build­ing,” she said.

One of her for­mer col­leagues at TV6, Shameila Thomas who al­so worked as a pro­duc­tion man­ag­er at CNC3, re­called what it was like to work with her.

“Tra­cy was a per­fec­tion­ist. She was the first stu­dio tele­vi­sion pro­duc­er I re­call work­ing with when I start­ed a ca­reer in me­dia. Tra­cy would time a run­down to the last 5 sec­onds. Strange­ly it was af­ter our time at TV6 that we got clos­er and I re­alised how sup­port­ive and beau­ti­ful a soul she was. I re­mem­ber her say­ing when I con­tem­plat­ed a move from TV6 to an­oth­er sta­tion ‘if you can stand on your own there with­out the fam­i­ly sup­port of TV6 you know you’re good. And you are so go for it.’

I re­mem­ber her most as pas­sion­ate about French, her work with Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty, autism and be­ing a moth­er and wife,” Thomas said.

A sup­port group for peo­ple with chron­ic ill­ness­es, A Fight­ing Chance TT, mourned Tra­cy’s pass­ing on its Face­book page on Mon­day.

“Yes­ter­day we lost a tru­ly in­cred­i­ble woman. Tra­cy Hutchin­son Wal­lace was a bril­liant, coura­geous, kind, amaz­ing soul. A smile brighter than the sun and a fire in her soul to fight for what is right. Al­ways. An ad­vo­cate for autism, per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties and any­one who need­ed a cham­pi­on. Al­ways seek­ing to ed­u­cate oth­ers. An ab­solute in­spi­ra­tion in count­less ways. She was light, love and as a friend said a li­oness. To know her was to love her,” it said.

“I wish I could give you more time with your fam­i­ly. I wish that the rights and un­der­stand­ing you fought for be­comes a re­al­i­ty, I wish you could see France again...We lost one of the bright­est souls that we were graced to have known but heav­en gained an an­gel yes­ter­day... Sleep in peace Trace...Gone but nev­er ever to be for­got­ten.”

Bethes­da al­so shared their con­do­lences on her pass­ing on their Face­book page.

“Tra­cy was a true sym­bol of light and strength. Let us pray for her eter­nal rest! Our deep­est con­do­lences goes out to her fam­i­ly. May she rest in peace,” it said.

Cause and Ef­fect Co-Founder, Lau­ra Es­cayg al­so paid trib­ute to Tra­cy on her page.

“Tra­cy’s name will con­tin­ue to live on through her two sons, through her friends and through every pro­duc­tion we do. Do not be sur­prised if you ever at­tend a Cause An Ef­fect fundrais­er and see a big pic­ture of her on stage. She was fam­i­ly...

As I type this I feel re­lief that she does not have to en­dure phys­i­cal pain any longer and for the first time ever at 44, I can tru­ly say that I fi­nal­ly un­der­stand what heart­break over los­ing a sis­ter feels like.

Tra­cy, I know you are danc­ing now in your bal­let slip­pers. You are free, at peace and back at one with your truest self.

I will nev­er for­get you and I will al­ways love you and one day when I make it to the oth­er side, I hope you will be there to wel­come me.”