In Loving Memory

Jamie Hoyt-Vitale

07/12/1983 - 10/10/2024

Please consider donating to
Cornell University Veterinary Patient Assistance
In Memory of Jamie Hoyt-Vitale.

Your donation will help people with pets that are financially struggling to afford their medical bills for treatments. Cornell University Animal Hospital saved our dog Otis, and Jamie wanted any donations to go toward assisting people with their pets medical bills.

I remember the first time
I saw you.

It was during a lecture hall class at the School of Visual Arts. I turned to my friend and said “I like her. That’s who I want to be with.” That was the fall of 2001.

By 2003, we were dating (yes, it took me that long to convince you). By 2005, you moved in with me into our first apartment on East 7th Street in Manhattan and we had finished our BFA degrees at SVA.

We got our first jobs in design, made just enough to afford rent and food, and over the following years, we grew together.

We bought our first apartment in Chelsea in 2008, got married at the Aquinnah Lighthouse in Martha’s Vineyard in 2009, and built a life that we dreamed of in the years that followed.

We rescued our dog, Otis, in 2012, standing as our first child as we commonly referred.

We worked so hard over the 20+ years together to create all of this, and while it wasn’t always easy, we made it through everything that came our way.

In 2014 we bought our house in Martha’s Vineyard, and renovated it from the ground up. We spent every weekend traveling to the vineyard with friends from NYC just to get it fixed up. We moved upstate before Covid hit, traveled around the US, and came back and continued building out our lives.

You were always the brains of the operation. Always the one that knew what we should invest in, how we should plan things, what the long term goals were.

You designed and meticulously crafted everything for us. You cared at all times, gave the best gifts, and all the while loved Otis and I unconditionally throughout.

You were an incredible designer, one of the best I knew. Your intuition was always spot on, you always figured out the vision and path to achieving our goals, and always inspired ideas around what could be.

When we first found out about your cancer diagnosis in January of 2024, I can still remember the moment that phone call came in. You were in the shower and I could see the shock on your face.

I told you we’d fight it,
and we’d come out of this.

You gave it your all, and with the ups came the downs, and the cancer was too fast and aggressive for all of the chemotherapy and clinical trials MSK had to offer.

The cancer you had was rare, continued to spread and you eventually succumbed, but I can’t thank you enough for trying your best to fight it.

What I have left, is the memories we made. The moments we shared with our small group of dedicated and loyal friends, including dinners, road trips, and birthdays we celebrated.

What I’ll try to remember are the happy moments: the 15 years of marriage, the 20+ years together, our trips to New Orleans, Palm Desert, and Martha’s Vineyard, and late nights laying in bed with Otis, falling asleep to National Treasure.