Laura Brigada, left and Erin Johnson work on a garden dedicated to the memory of their close friend Kristen Duhamel.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

CHARLESTOWN — Every Sunday, Kristen M. Duhamel and the other four members of the Sunday crew at the Charlestown Ambulance and Rescue Service gathered at the ambulance station waiting for calls.

On occasions, her friends say, Duhamel would bring her yellow Lab, Max, and her popcorn maker.

And just like that, the friends turned the down time into movie night.

Last September, Duhamel, a Charlestown native studying nursing at Fairfield University, died in a car accident on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut.

It was a Friday morning. News of the accident spread in a matter of hours throughout the rescue community.

Most, however, wouldn’t learn until the following day, when an emergency meeting was held at the rescue station, that it was Kristen who had died.

Even then, her friends say, it didn’t sink in.

LAURA BRIGADA, one of her close friends, said as she was driving to the rescue station that Saturday morning, she picked up her cell phone to call Kristen.

Brigada ended up not calling, deciding not to bother her friend when she didn’t really know what had happened. At that point, all she knew was that one of the ambulance and rescue members had died in a car accident.

During the meeting, squad leaders said they had spoken to Kristen’s parents the night before.

“But it still didn’t click,” Brigada says now.

THAT SUNDAY, the first Sunday without Kristen, her friends and shift partners –– Erin Johnson, David Stanhope and Colin Murphy of South Kingstown, and Brigada, of Charlestown — started talking about ways to remember and celebrate Kristen’s life.

With Brigada at the helm, the friends eventually settled for a garden.

Around the same time, another group of friends from The Prout School, where Kristen graduated with honors in 2006 –– Bridget and Maggie Fleming, of Narragansett, and Sheenagh Denniston, of Charlestown –– started brainstorming to set up a scholarship.

The girls have since raised more than $1,700 by selling “Our Guardian Angel” wristbands –– with Kristen’s name imprinted on them in her favorite colors, blue and green.

The first $500 scholarship will be awarded on May 29, to a Prout graduating senior studying Spanish — Kristen’s second passion, along with nursing.

THIS SUNDAY at 7 p.m., on the eve of what would have been Kristen’s 20th birthday, her family and friends will unveil the memorial garden at the Charlestown Ambulance & Rescue Service headquarters.

The garden features a blossoming cherry tree at the center, next to a granite bench engraved with Kristen’s name. Surrounding it all is a mix of colorful perennials and annuals, many of them from Brigada’s family garden, some passed down for generations. They’re set in a paisley-shaped plot, resembling a twisted teardrop.

“A happy teardrop,” Erin Johnson offered this month as the work on the garden began.

“We want something vibrant and colorful ...” said Laura Brigada.

“Because that really signifies what she was as a person, just an array of colors,” added Johnson.

Six bluestone steppingstones leading to the bench have also been set, but whether a seventh will be added –– or if so, whether that will happen before or after Sunday’s ceremony –– is yet to be decided.

Brigada’s parents spotted the engraved steppingstone during a trip to Florida in March and bought it because the inscription reminded them of Kristen. But Brigada said she is concerned the engraving may be too depressing:

“If tears would build a stairway and memories a lane,

“I would walk right up to heaven,

“And bring you home again.”

The garden will be dedicated Sunday night at 7 p.m. at the Charlestown Ambulance Rescue Service, 4891 Old Post Rd., Charlestown. Those who attend are asked to wear white shirts.

marmenta@projo.com