Holly's Final Journey

You might say she did more living in her 25 years than many do in a lifetime.

graduate Holly Pyle traversed Europe, admired the architecture of the Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia, experienced the culture in Greece and explored South America. She shed her "material girl" image in order to see the world.

"She just took off and kept on going," said her father, Jon Pyle. "She was Miss Personality."

Holly, a 2008 graduate of Georgia Southern University, was nearing the end of a six-month trip to Asia when the boat in which she was sleeping suddenly sank in Vietnam's Ha Long Bay. of the Bien Mo, or Dream of the Ocean, resulted in the deaths of 12 passengers, including Holly and a 22-year-old friend from Virginia. Fifteen passengers survived the sinking, which .

Holly worked at Nordstrom department store for a year to pay for the trip, which she embarked on in August. Staying in contact through Facebook and e-mail, Jon said the family had near-constant contact with Holly. That is, unless she was too far off the beaten path.

In Thailand, she told her father she planned to ride an elephant, which Jon assumed would be a similar experience as riding ponies in a circle at a carnival. Instead, she took a three-day expedition through the rain forest from a vantage point atop an elephant. The adventure entailed feeding and bathing the animals and catching freshwater shrimp in a bamboo shoot.

"Those things kind of amazed me," said Jon, who lives in Canton. "I thought, 'That's my girl.' "

Jon said Holly, like him, had a sense for adventure and a love of traveling. That sense took her around the world, and she had plans to spend more time abroad in the future teaching English in Japan. She enjoyed helping others. That was classic Holly.

During one of her visits home from Statesboro, she got a phone call from a friend who was experiencing a family crisis. Just 10 minutes after she'd made the 250-mile trip to Canton, she hopped in her car and drove back to Statesboro.

"She would pack up and go if someone needed her," Jon said. "She was just a comfort."

Even her Christmas gifts showed her kindness. Holly didn't take the easy route and buy gift cards. She put some of herself into whatever she gave. Those gifts – homemade jewelry, wine glasses on which she painted "I Love You Dad" and ceramics she'd made – serve as a comfort to her parents. So do the hundreds of pictures she posted on Facebook of her doing something else that was classic Holly: being a world traveler.

Whether she was enjoying Ireland, living in Costa Rica, exploring Turkey or riding on the back of an elephant through the jungles of Asia, Holly spread her zest for life to those who knew her.

"Holly was full of life," Jon said. "If Holly was in the room, you knew it."

MEMORIAL FOR HOLLY

When: 2 p.m. today

Where: Birmingham United Methodist Church, 15770 Birmingham Hwy., Alpharetta