Sarah Trytten

November 10, 2020

Sarah Marie (née Bullard) Trytten of Fort Collins, Colorado was born on December 21, 1976 in Lafayette, Indiana. She passed peacefully from this world at age 43 on Tuesday, November 10, 2020 from liver failure at Poudre Valley Hospital, with family members present and providing loving support. And so a brilliant light vanished from our view, burning out much too soon for those of us, her family and friends, who loved her deeply. Sarah was the second child born to Peter and Judith Bullard. Her big sister, Emily (now Sander, also of Fort Collins), was 3 when Sarah came home from the hospital in a candy cane baby wrap on Christmas Eve. Sarah was a beautiful, happy child. We should have known she would follow her own star when instead of crawling she dragged herself across the floor in her “worm crawl”. She loved to twirl around, spinning with her eyes shifted sideways to make us laugh. When the family moved to Fort Collins in 1984, Sarah was 7. She went through the fantastic Poudre School system from grades 2 through 12, graduating from Rocky Mountain High School in 1996. Sarah loved singing and making videos with elaborate plots with her friends (and sometime parents as bit players). Sarah was a good basketball player and shone when it came to rebounding and free throw shooting. She was a good swimmer and competed for the Lexington Green neighborhood team. On family vacations, she was not satisfied until she found a friend she could turn into her partner for the stay. She was smart and a good student when she was motivated, and eventually (after a hiatus that included travel and work in Arizona and Vancouver, B.C., where she got a small acting role in an Antonio Banderas movie, the “13th Warrior”) Sarah returned to school, graduating in 2003 from C.S.U. with a bachelor’s degree in Technical Journalism. She did most of her higher education while raising her first child, Sage, born in 2000 to her and her first husband, Christopher Lance, whom she married in 1999. Sarah and Chris divorced in 2002 but Chris stayed in Sage’s life and has been an anchor for Sage over the years. Sarah worked in real estate marketing, but really wanted to be her own boss. She took chances creating a gardening business, one growing and selling cilantro to local restaurants and another designing and selling her own line of swimwear. None of this made Sarah wealthy, but owning her own businesses did satisfy her desire to make her own way in life. In 2008, Sarah married Bryon Trytten, with whom she had 2 beautiful children, Blake (12) and Whitney (10). She loved them, and Sage, fiercely, and her spirit will always be there to guide them through their lives. Sarah loved the ocean and its beaches, and made them her priority destination for vacations. She and Bryon were married on the beach in Akumal, Mexico at La Buena Vida restaurant, with a ceremony Sarah wrote herself honoring lovely words from several religions, read to those present by family and friends. Sarah loved to collect and give homes to stray and unwanted cats, the most recent being Jesse and Jaws, who will miss her devotion. Sarah’s sense of humor was probably her most obvious character trait. She loved to laugh, to get others to laugh, to play word and other games, to tell stories, to sing with others. Sarah was just fun to be with. She had many good friends who will miss her quick laugh and buoyant personality. Sarah was a very spiritual person. She attended church regularly as a child, and she and her father were baptized together when Sarah was age 6. She continued to believe in a higher power throughout her life and was comforted by her beliefs as her health declined. We who have been mentioned and who survive will miss those joyful times so much: Pete and Judy Bullard, Emily Sander, Bryon Trytten, Sage Lance, Blake Trytten, Whitney Trytten. As will Sarah’s brother-in-law, Clinton Sander, her nieces - Clementine Sander and Charlotte Sander; her nephew – Elliot Sander; her aunts - Janice Klisiak, Joan Rau, Patty Gescheidler, Beth Bullard, Ann Lee and Judy (the other Judy) Bullard; her uncles - John Gescheidler, John Rau and Thomas Bullard; her cousins – Jennifer Kandalek, Melanie Rau, Kristen Feibelman, Rachelle Brillante, Jennifer Ewing, Elizabeth Earl, Dan Gescheidler, Brian Rau, Tom Bullard, Jason Bullard, Tim Earl, Arno Reichel and Jonathan Lee; and many others including Bryon’s parents, Steve and Tonya Trytten, and his siblings, Jason Trytten and Jillian Odom, and Sarah’s many close friends. Those who passed before Sarah include her grandparents, Howard and Phyllis Gescheidler and John and Audrey Bullard, her uncle, Stanley Klisiak, and her cousin, Michelle Earl. A private celebration of Sarah’s life will be held soon, and will be streamed live with a link to come. If you would like to make a donation to remember Sarah, you can send that in her honor to Ocean Conservancy at https://oceanconservancy.org, or to Animal Friends Alliance at https://www.savinganimalstoday.org/donate/ or to your favorite charity.