Amaresh Tesfamariam, a longtime resident of North York, was a beautiful soul who met an incredibly tragic ending.
The Willowdale woman was one of 16 people injured on the afternoon of April 23, 2018, when a man deliberately drove a pickup truck at high speed through crowds of people walking on the sidewalk on Yonge Street, south of Finch Avenue East.
Ten others: Ji Hun Kim and So He Chung, both 22 years old; Anne Marie D’Amico, 30 years old; Andrea Bradden, 33; Chul Min (Eddie) Kang, 45; Renuka Amarasingha, 45 years old; Dorothy Sewell, 80 years old; Geraldine (Gerry) Brady, 83; Munir Najjar, 85 years old; and Betty Forsyth, 94 – died that day during the attack.
Paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe or speak without the help of a ventilator, Tesfamariam was so seriously injured that she never returned home near Mel Lastman Square.
After three and a half years of hospital care, he died peacefully on October 28 at Michael Garron Hospital. Tesfamariam, who before the attack was working as a nurse at Fudger House in downtown Toronto, was 65 years old.
On November 4, dozens of family, friends and people from the community gathered at the Eritrean Orthodox Church of Medhaine Alem, near Dufferin and Eglinton avenues, for the moving Tesfamariam memorial. Known as a fithat, the ritual and prayer-filled funeral service served to unblock, unlink, and release his soul in preparation for the next phase of his life.
Many of those in attendance gathered in the church hall to share prayers and stories about their deceased loved one, who was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and lived and worked as a teacher in Eritrea before immigrating to Canada in 1987.
“Amaresh taught us a lot. We will miss her every day, ”said her niece Luwam Ogbaselassie after the service.
She said her aunt “absolutely struggled” during the last years of her life, as she was frequently in and out of the intensive care unit, but never cried or complained.
“(My aunt) struggled for over three and a half years, but her faith never wavered, it only deepened,” shared Ogbaselassie, who remembered Tesfamariam as a “charismatic, resourceful, strong and intelligent” woman.
Younger brother Belay said his sister Amaresh will be deeply missed as she was seen as a mother figure to her nine siblings.
“She was someone who took care of the family,” he said after the fithat.
“It is really a great loss for the whole family.”
Belay, who said her family has no feelings of anger at the man who did this to her sister, thanked all the healthcare workers who took such good care of Amaresh, who was single and had no children.
She also expressed her appreciation to everyone who showed love to her sister during this “extremely difficult” time.
“I think that kept her going. She felt it and it kept her strong, ”Belay said.
Richmond Hill resident Alek Minassian, who is now 28 but was 25 at the time of the Yonge Street van attack, was charged and convicted of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder. .
He faces an automatic life sentence, due in 2022. Minassian’s case returns to court in January.
In a Nov.11 news release, Toronto police said investigators continue to work with the Office of the Chief Coroner and the Office of the Crown Prosecutor on this investigation, which now has an 11th murder victim.
-With a file from the Toronto Star
Reference-www.thestar.com