Published at 2:55 am. Updated at 5:00 am.
Sunday #1
Last May, Fabienne Houde-Bastien’s life ended when she was hit by a car on the corner of Jean-Talon and Saint-Laurent. Media reports spoke of a “pedestrian” who had no chance.
It was that word that made one of his sisters, Andréane, cringe. Of course Fabienne was a pedestrian, but Fabienne was more than that, much more than that. She was an aunt, a sister, a daughter, a friend…
And Andréane came to me so that I could talk about it, namely the fact that Fabienne wasn’t just a pedestrian1.
I told the story of Fabienne, who experienced a thousand things before a repeat traffic offender was accused of causing the accident that killed Fabienne.
47-year-old Vi Trung Ngo had a blood alcohol level almost three times the legal limit2.
Photo submitted as evidence in court
The scene of the accident at the corner of Jean-Talon and Saint-Laurent in Montreal
It was early in the morning, last Sunday, May 21st.
Sunday #2
Every Sunday the four Houde-Bastien sisters met at their parents François and Brigitte’s house.
Of course, someone has been missing every Sunday since May 21st: Fabienne.
Sundays have always been days of family reunion for the sisters. Even as adults, when we move away from our parents a little. They always dragged their friends and children to François and Brigitte’s house in Côte-des-Neiges.
On this gray Sunday, I’m taking notes at the Houde-Bastien kitchen table. François, Brigitte, Yanick, Jasmine and Andréane talk to me about life without Fabienne, about absence. From the gaping hole left by Fabienne’s death.
Jasmine: “Five months passed yesterday. Next step… It will be six months. I find it very difficult to understand that this happened and that it will remain this way forever. »
François: “May 21st was the first day in the rest of our lives that we lived without Fabienne. His absence scares me. »
The people around us were shocked by Fabienne’s death. But her life goes on, at the normal pace of life. But we are not at the normal pace.
Brigitte, mother of the victim
Yanick has bought five books about grief; she wants to prepare and cope: “I’m afraid of the six-month mark, November is a sad, gray and cold month…”
Andréane: “In one of Yanick’s books we describe what accompanies traumatic grief. I check all the boxes: intrusive thoughts, hypervigilance, insomnia, nightmares…”
For his part, François has been comparing himself to a boxer since May 21st: “A boxer in the knockout. technically, you know? He’s still on his feet, but he’s taken too many punches and he can’t continue the fight. And my fight is not against grief, against pain or sadness. These are fait accompli that are irreversible and irreparable. »
Children’s noises came from the living room, those of William, Thomas and Juliette. The friends look after the children. Life goes on, Sundays follow one another.
And while I’m taking notes, I think of something dizzying. When a tragedy occurs, it dominates the headlines for a while. First, the tragedy receives constant attention, then…
Then the tragedy faded from the media. We talk about it less. We’ll talk about it when the suspect like this Vi Trung Ngo appears in court again last June.
And here at the Houde-Bastien table I feel dizzy: the headlines are not reality. Because humanly, instinctively and daily, the tragedy has not subsided at all for the five people who tell me about Fabienne and her absence.
Fabienne is still absent 154 days later. It still hurts her just as much that she died, that she died under those circumstances (hence the idea of traumatic grief), presumably because a person who is afraid of the lives of others (Fabienne, in “Occurrence”) got behind the wheel drunk as hell (almost three times the legal limit, that’s the correct expression).
Fabienne’s absence is forever, as François explained to me, and she appears anytime, anywhere without warning.
When Brigitte talks to her three daughters, she notices that the kitchen is empty: Fabienne is missing.
Jasmine and Andréane have children. Yanick doesn’t have one. Fabienne had none. They had a thousand things in common, Yanick and Fabienne, but they also had one thing: they could talk about things other than children, about motherhood, it was their zone of sisterhood between them…
And when Jasmine sends an email to the family, she still has the reflex to add “Fabienne” to the recipient list. And with every blow she realizes: Well, no… Fabienne is no longer here.
For the Houde-Bastien family, all the happy milestones of the last few months – Juliette’s birthday, Yanick’s wedding, William, François, Brigitte, Fabienne and Andréane’s birthdays – should have been just that: happy events. But an invisible gray cloud now lies over these milestones: Fabienne is not there.
This is Fabienne’s absence every Sunday, every day since May 21st.
Sunday #3
On Sunday, October 29, it will be 161 days since Fabienne died in an accident caused – according to police – by Vi Trung Ngo.
At 11 a.m., a new municipal symbol commemorating pedestrian deaths will be unveiled at the site where Fabienne was killed, at the corner of Jean-Talon and Saint-Laurent.
You know, those white bikes we hang on street furniture that cyclists have lost their lives on? It is Vélo Fantôme that installs these symbols to perpetuate the memory of these people who inevitably disappear from the headlines.
Vélo Fantôme recently became Souliers et Bikes Phantoms Québec3 to include pedestrians in its commemorations.
Fabienne Houde-Bastien will become the first pedestrian to be mowed down by a driver on Sunday, whose memory will be immortalized by the addition of white shoes.
For the Houde-Bastiens it is the 24th Sunday without Fabienne.