Zoey came into the world on a February morning in 1996 in Stillwater, Oklahoma, second child to John and Renee, little sister to Alicia. She was not a quiet arrival. From the very beginning she operated at full volume — fully present, fully certain that she was exactly where she was supposed to be and that everyone around her was fortunate to be there too. When her brother Noah joined the family a few years later, she absorbed him into her orbit immediately. He was hers.
She was a girl of strong preferences and she held them without apology. Pink was not just a color — it was a position. She was the center of every room she entered and she expected that to be understood. She played soccer, joined swim team, tried gymnastics, earned her Girl Scout patches, and approached school primarily as a social institution, which she excelled at. When John came home from a work trip, she met him at the door the same way every time — running, arms out, hanging from his neck before he had both feet inside.
She did not quit. When her partner failed to show for a childhood dance recital, the teacher quietly asked if she still wanted to go out.
She walked onto that stage, alone, and performed every count of the routine from memory.
Whatever the situation handed her, she handled it. She always found a way to keep going.
High school brought out more of her. She had a memory that could hold a script word for word after a single read-through and a sense of humor that was sharper than most people expected — dry, well-timed, a beat late so you had to catch it. Swim team gave her one of her closest friendships. The family traveled when they could, and she catalogued the world against her own internal standard. Hawaii was the winner, definitively and without further debate. Back home she had a private game she played at her father's expense: hiding his lunch, then watching from somewhere nearby as he looked for it.
She graduated from high school in Katy, Texas, with AP credits and a spot on the National Honor Society. She had decided she was going to be a nurse. It fit her in the obvious way — she was going to spend her life taking care of people whether anyone gave her a credential for it or not, so she might as well make it official. The University of Arizona accepted her into their pre-nursing program. She arrived in Tucson in the fall of 2014 and within weeks had found the thing she had been looking for: a sorority house that felt like home, sisters who became family, and a best friend named Maria who would be part of her life for the rest of it.
"She walked onto that stage, alone, and performed every count of the routine from memory. That was Zoey. She never, ever gave up."
— Renee Zalusky, her mother
