As a teenager, Meghan Brady Merkert was the preferred babysitter on the block.

She had a standing gig watching the two daughters of Lisa Meier, who lived across the street from her in Phoenix. Merkert would give her neighbor regular updates throughout the night, and the kitchen was always spotless when she came home. Meier would often return to Merkert and the girls laughing and chit-chatting before bedtime.

As Merkert grew older, her interests changed, but her sense of joy and responsibility never did. Baking with the neighbors turned into going to the zoo with her own daughters. Cleaning the house for Meier became renovating her own home with her husband. Keeping Meier informed all night set the stage for her career in communications and human resources.

“For as beautiful as she was on the outside, which she was, it was her inner warmth that captivated hearts,” Meier said. “She had a natural brightness and promise, and, to me, she represented everything good and right in this world. She had high morals and standards and just was as genuine as they come.”

That’s why the world feels so much darker without her, loved ones said.

Merkert, a Timonium mother of two who was pregnant with her third daughter, died suddenly Dec. 19. The cause of death has not yet been determined. She was 36.

Merkert was born March 3, 1988, the only child of Amy and Ned Brady. She attended the Immaculate Heart of Mary School from first to fifth grade and Notre Dame Preparatory School for sixth grade through high school.

As a child, she loved time outdoors and riding bikes with other kids on the block, Brady said. She was a good student who played basketball, soccer and lacrosse in grade school, mostly because her father coached.

Though she wasn’t a great athlete, “she always had a great attitude,” her father said. “She always had that ability to pick out the weakest kid in the group and become friends with that kid.”

College made her more serious, her father said. At the end of her freshman year at Virginia Tech, a mass shooter killed 32 people, sending shockwaves across campus and the nation. At the start of sophomore year, four of her friends were poisoned in a carbon monoxide leak.

The experiences furthered her resolve to lead and help others, Brady said. She became an officer in her sorority, Delta Zeta, and mentored girls in the group.

After college, she briefly worked as a marketing consultant in Virginia Beach before returning to the Baltimore area to complete communications and marketing work for the Joseph E. Shaner Company. During this time, she reconnected with Eugene “Hayes” Merkert III, who’d also attended Virginia Tech.

The two met at a tailgate in college. Though they didn’t know each other well, they ran in the same circles, and Meghan Merkert always had a crush on him. After he moved to Baltimore, a friend set the pair up on a blind date, and they became inseparable.

“She was just so bubbly and had a great personality and was easy to talk to,” Hayes Merkert said. “We just had a great time right from the get-go.”

They dated for three years before Hayes Merkert popped the question at Lake Roland park. He wasn’t wearing clothes suitable for hiking, so she probably knew what was going to happen but played along anyway.

They married in 2017 at the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club in Annapolis. Meghan Merkert, the expert organizer, planned almost all of it.

“All I was told was to have my checkbook ready because we were having a big wedding,” Brady said.

Before children, the couple spent their days traveling, going to concerts and taking cooking classes. They hiked in Switzerland, saw Arcade Fire in Montreal and relaxed on the beach in Aruba. Meghan Merkert always loved going to the beach, and one of her favorite annual activities was the family vacation to Fenwick Island.

Most of their time together, though, was spent renovating their home. Meghan Merkert started working for Stanley Black & Decker in 2015, so she got all of the tools they needed to replace floors and tiles, rip out drywall and strip off old wallpaper. She taught herself how to install trim.

“She was definitely a get-it-done type of person and wouldn’t let me half-ass anything,” Hayes Merkert said.

They felt fortunate when Meghan Merkert quickly got pregnant. Peyton came first in 2019, and then there was Margot. Before Peyton was born, Hayes Merkert had new-parent fears: Am I ready? Am I cut out for this? But his wife was always confident about their future.

She loved doting on her girls. They would go to Target and make pizzas together. Meghan Merkert was always the person to volunteer to read a book to Peyton’s class or organize fundraisers.

She was pregnant with her third daughter, Ainsley, when she suddenly collapsed in her home last month.

“She didn’t miss a beat,” Brady said. “Her whole day was planned out around those girls. … They were just everything to her.”

Meghan Merkert had worked from home since the COVID pandemic, which allowed her to spend more time with her kids and teach them life lessons, Brady said.

During her time at Stanley Black & Decker, she eventually started working in talent development. She loved the idea of helping people stay happy in their jobs, her husband said.

She left to work in employee communications at GlobalFoundries in 2023. She was courted by her former boss, Mike Murray, and became his right hand. She was always willing to tackle a new project and offer constructive feedback, Murray said.

“You knew that she was going to help you, and she’s going to do it with a smile, and she’s going to make you laugh at the same time,” Murray said. “She’s never made an enemy.”

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