You may have read this terrible news item, at the end of the week, that of a young woman fatally hit by what looks like a drunken driver, in Little Italy.
The Press “A pedestrian in her thirties lost her life on Sunday after being hit in a ‘high-speed’ collision involving two vehicles, one of the drivers of which was arrested for impaired driving…”
The pedestrian is Fabienne Houde-Bastien, 31 years old.
Andréane, one of her three sisters, wrote to me on Monday: “The pain of the family is indescribable. It’s not just a pedestrian who died. She’s a sister, a friend, an aunt. It is also dreams, projects and plans for the future that have gone with her. I was wondering if you would like to write a column about my amazing sister…”
The next evening, I was in Fabienne’s kitchen where Yanick, Jasmine and Andréane were waiting for me.
Around Fabienne’s kitchen table, they talk about Fabienne.
The Houde-Bastien sisters talk about it in the present tense, it’s never unusual for people who have just lost a loved one.
Andréane (34 years old), Jasmine (33 years old) and Yanick (29 years old) sometimes laugh while telling each other funny anecdotes about their sister…
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE HOUDE-BASTIEN FAMILY
Fabienne Houde-Bastien, young, with her family
How Fabienne nurtured her nephews and nieces, particularly Jasmine’s son, William, alias Wiwichou, “my best bud”, as she called him. She often dragged him to the Jean-Talon Market, for an ice cream…
The Market, Fabienne’s center of gravity.
With the Milano grocery store, not far away.
And the lattes at Caffe Italia…
Fabienne, who walked all the time. who was running. Who rode a BIXI. Who hated the automobile, to the point of renewing her temporary driver’s license since she was 17, so much so that the photo on said license showed her as a teenager…
His favorite expressions, like “It will change your life! she tossed at her sisters, knowing full well that she was sinking into hyperbole, it was after all only a question of a rice cooker, a Soda Stream or a heavy anti-stress blanket. anxiety…
Andréane, Jasmine and Yanick show me photos of their sister, of them with their sister, with their parents. I’m talking to you about a quartet of sisters who, even adults, every Sunday – EVERY Sunday – met at their parents’ home, Brigitte and François, in Côte-des-Neiges, just to be… together.
With the children of Andréane and Jasmine, and their spouses.
Last Saturday, it was an exception in her routine, Fabienne had gone out with friends, she wanted to dance. On Saturday evenings, Fabienne generally went to bed early, for two reasons…
One, on Sunday, she was preparing for her coming week.
Two, she wanted to be fit for the day with the famiglia.
And from Villeray, generally, it was in jogging that she joined her parents’ house, in Côte-des-Neiges.
Imagine the house of the Houde-Bastien clan, in Côte-des-Neiges.
The house where the four sisters grew up, the only one they knew, as a family.
And Sunday morning, very early, there was a knock on the door. It was 7 a.m.
Andréane’s parents, Jasmine, Fabienne and Yanick opened up and lost their breath when they saw the two SPVM officers.
They knew right away. The police don’t knock on your house for no reason at 7 a.m. on a Sunday.
The only terrible thing that remained to be established…
Which of their daughters was dead?
One of the policemen asked: “Do you know where Fabienne is?” »
They converged on the Sacré-Coeur hospital, alerted by their parents. Andréane, Jasmine and Yanick arrived at different times, with their friends.
And each time, a nurse was waiting for them to say the words, delicately.
For four hours, Fabienne was cuddled, touched, kissed.
The sisters in Fabienne’s kitchen all tell me the same thing: Fabienne just looked like she was sleeping. Wounded, bruised, yes. But there, almost intact.
Jasmine: “We spoke to him. We told him we loved him. »
Yanick: “We touched his hands, his cheeks. I found her beautiful. »
The sisters have a message for the nurses who took care of the Houde-Bastien clan on Sunday at Sacré-Coeur: thank you for your gentleness, for your humanity.
After leaving Sacré-Coeur, Yanick, Jasmine and Andréane, with their parents, set off for Little Italy. They wanted to see the crash site. They wanted to go to Milano, to Caffe Italia.
They went to buy a bouquet of disparate flowers, at the Jean-Talon Market, a bouquet which they placed at the foot of a signpost overturned by one of the cars involved in the accident which killed Fabienne.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE HOUDE-BASTIEN FAMILY
The sisters placed a bouquet at the foot of a sign knocked down by one of the cars involved in the accident that killed Fabienne.
The sisters returned to the corner of Jean-Talon/Saint-Laurent later.
And on Tuesday, firefighters were there, cleaning up the rest of the red blood on the road. Andréane was there, around 5 p.m. Firefighters told him they knew a young woman had died here in the early hours of Sunday morning…
I had questions… I asked whoever seemed to be the captain if… If my sister had been alone. His answer: no, our guys arrived very quickly. They started the manoeuvres, then the paramedics arrived…
Andréane Houde-Bastien, sister of Fabienne
It reassured Andréane to know that humans were there, while life was leaving Fabienne.
The fireman, solid at the beginning of the conversation with Andréane, had watery eyes at the end.
You don’t get used to it, he told her.
Around the table, the Houde-Bastien sisters laugh softly, reminiscing once again on Fabienne’s life. A young man approaches little by little, after spending the beginning of the interview in the living room, in the background. Damien, Fabienne’s ex-boyfriend, but still a friend.
Everyone has their own anecdote, we go one better. The girls thank Damien, who took Fabienne out of her comfort zone, she who was fighting against anxiety. They praise it: travel, Sweden, Malaysia, South America, it’s thanks to you, Damien, without you, she would never have dared…
The young man smiles.
Earlier, the sisters opened the apartment for her friends, telling them: take what you want, take a souvenir of Fabienne…
Everyone left with a photo, a canvas, a household object. I am thinking of Victor Hugo’s phrase: “You are no longer where you were, but you are everywhere where I am. »
There are many, many people who can say that today about Fabienne Houde-Bastien.
After the evening at the Cobra bar, on Saint-Laurent, her friends took a taxi. Asked Fabienne if she wanted to ride with them…
Fabienne being Fabienne, she chose to walk.
She headed north, towards her home on rue Berri.
She climbed Saint-Laurent, on foot…
And the rest is in the news items you read.
The man arrested and charged for Fabienne’s death is called Vi Trung Ngo, 47, of Montreal North. He was charged with impaired driving causing death.
In Fabienne’s kitchen, I ask the Houde-Bastien sisters if they have any particular feelings for the suspect…
Yanick: “Today, we chose Fabienne’s clothes for the show. We are on autopilot. We have zero mental space for him. »
Jasmine: “At the trial, I’m going to want this man to see my face, so it won’t let him sleep…”
What Andréane, Yanick and Jasmine want, by speaking publicly, by bringing Fabienne to life, is to tell who she was, beyond this drama. A sister, a friend, an aunt, a woman full of life.
— To change behaviors, says Yanick.
“So she’s not just seen as a ‘pedestrian’?”
– Exactly.