Helgi Bjarnason brought his mom Vicky to the Lapu-Lapu Day festival while she was visiting Vancouver for a taste of their Filipino heritage. They had only been there for a few minutes when tragedy struck. “I was holding her hand as I heard the car screeching behind. I looked, I saw it, and I tried to pull her,” said Bjarnason. “I didn’t get to say goodbye, or look out, or watch, move, nothing. No words. I just really tried to pull her.” After Bjarnason was knocked to the pavement by the speeding SUV, he never saw his mom again. His leg shattered and bodies all around him, he was comforted by a stranger who stayed at his side while he waited for paramedics. “She held my hand the entire time, helping me breathe through the pain,” Bjarnason said. The 27-year-old is now recovering in hospital. His partner Garrett hasn’t left his side. “I don’t know if I would be this strong or be this state if it wasn’t for him, and I didn’t have someone sleeping beside me every night,” Bjarnason said. There have been flashes of anger at the man with mental health issues now charged in the attack that killed his mom and 10 others. “At some point, I was mad. But I remember how my mom would think about this. And she doesn’t have an angry bone in her body,” he said. Bjarnason has been blown away by by the generosity of people who’ve donated to a GoFundMe to help cover the costs of his recovery and bringing Vicky’s body back to the Philippines for a memorial. “And I just know my mom’s like, ‘I told you so. I told you so, people are good. And they will help,’” he said, adding messages of support are just as important. “When I get the energy to read them, it’s like waterfalls in here just crying. Some people who knew my mom so briefly had so much love and concern about me and my family.” Bjaranson is an occupational therapist, and knows his physical recovery will be long and difficult. But his body will heal faster than his heart. “The nurses here are saying, ‘Oh you’re so bubbly,’ most of the time when I’m not in pain, ‘You’re just so positive.’ And I think, ‘That’s my mom. That’s her,’” Bjarnason said. “Those are the things I learned from her. It’s free to be kind. It doesn’t take a lot to smile. That’s how I want her to be remembered.”
