A video tribute by the daughters of an Elliot Lake, Ont., father who passed away recently has gone viral, garnering more than 1.5 million views on TikTok. His family has been overwhelmed by the response. Ryan Lecour, 43, died suddenly July 18, leaving behind his wife, Monika, and their six children: Roek, 19, Emma, 18, Robyn, 14, Nora, 12, Vincent, 8, and Hannah, 5. The family lives in Elliot Lake, but Ryan grew up in Callander, near North Bay. Emma told CTV News this week that her dad was a devoted father. “Everything he did was to spend time with his family, so it’s left a big hole in our lives,” she said. Emma, Robyn and Nora sang at their father’s funeral at the end of July. The trio has a band called ‘Endikin.’ One of the songs the girls performed at the service was ‘Landslide’ by Fleetwood Mac. The song has special memories for the family -- there is also a video from 2017 of the girls singing the same song. “I had sung the song to my children as a lullaby when they were younger. They started learning it and singing together over the years and it’s just always been a placeholder in our family choir,” Monika said. “It was definitely hard, but it was nice to perform for him one last time,” Robyn said. Monika said that Ryan always encouraged their children to develop their talents and pursue their passions. He had encouraged the musical pursuits of Emma, Robyn and Nora and their band. “It was his favourite thing -- listening to us perform,” Emma said. “The day after the funeral, we had a concert that had been booked for a few months and … we played there because if he could talk to us, he would tell us not to cancel it.” Monika’s sister, Sheela Hamdard, combined the 2017 performance of Landside with the one from Ryan’s funeral and sent it to Monika to comfort her. Within 24 hours of the video being posted to Monika’s TikTok account, it had more than a million views. As of Aug. 7, it was up to 1.5 million. Monika called the outpouring of support ‘tremendously overwhelming.” “I’m just so grateful for everyone else’s heartfelt outpouring, all the messages of encouragement and sympathy, and letting the girls know: keep going, your music is really touching a lot of people’s lives,” she said. Ryan was the sole breadwinner of the family and died without life insurance or a will. To help with expenses, Hamdard created a GoFundMe to help the family. As of Thursday afternoon, the fund had reached more than $45,000.
