AFTER VAN RAMPAGE
Attack leaves boy orphan
Renuka Amarasingha was a single mother with a singular determination: to provide her son, Diyon, with the best of lives. Diyon is an active, busy boy, just seven years old, with tides of energy. He loves sports, and went everywhere and did everything with his mom, including making the trip from Toronto to Horana, Sri Lanka, a town near the country’s capital city where his mother was born and where his grandmother, aunt and uncle still live.
Reconnecting with her roots for several weeks during an endless Toronto winter, with her only child in tow, had left Amarasingha recharged. Glowing, an energy she carried home to Toronto last Sunday and shared, somewhat wearily, in conversation with her friend, Uthpala Ahangama, just a few hours after stepping off the flight.
“She had not even slept yet,” Ahangama says. “Renuka’s whole life was about her son. She took him everywhere.”
Amarasingha went to work Monday at Earl Haig Secondary School, just a few blocks east of Yonge Street. It was her first day on the job in the school cafeteria. At the end of her shift, she headed for Yonge — and the subway line there — a journey that was cut short when a white van mounted the sidewalk at the intersection of Finch and drove south, killing the single mother — and nine others — and orphaning a little boy. Amarasingha was 46 years old. Ahangama’s voice drops to a whisper when she speaks of her friend, and what happened Monday, and what happens next. Jeremy, her son, is another busy little boy — and friends with Diyon. The two met at daycare. Their mothers grew close. Uthpala’s husband, Anoshan Ahangama, is a lawyer and Amarasingha was a practical person.
She split up with her husband before Diyon was born and, a few years ago, set down a will giving guardianship of the child to a couple in the United States in the event of her death.
“Renuka made arrangements,” Anoshan Ahangama says. “I won’t be able to release their information, as is their request, but she appointed two individuals — in the United States.”
Amarasingha and Diyon lived in a basement apartment in east-end Toronto. Their landlords, a Sri Lankan family, are currently caring for the boy. On Tuesday, he learned that his mother wasn’t coming home.
“The child started crying,” Anoshan Ahangama says. “But he is around other young children today. He is just a little boy — so he doesn’t know how to process, or really how he should react.
“But he knows that his mother is gone. He knows.”
On the Sunday before her death, Amarasingha and Diyon attended a Sri Lankan New Year’s celebration at the Toronto Maha Vihara Buddhist Meditation Centre, where Diyon goes to Sunday school. Amarasingha first visited the temple more than 15 years ago. She was known there for her kindness — and the occasional batch of homemade curry she would bring for the monks.
“She prepared the food in her basement apartment,” says Ahangama Rathanasiri, the temple’s abbot. “She was a great cook.”
Members of the congregation met Tuesday night to discuss possible funeral arrangements, and what could be done for Diyon.
The temple, along with several other Sri Lankan organizations, started a GoFundMe page for the child’s care. By Wednesday evening, more than $80,000 had been raised.
Amarasingha took adult education courses at the Toronto District School Board and started working in nutrition services in 2015. She would move from school to school and she was liked wherever she went.
Her last move, to Earl Haig, put her in the path of a van and its murderous driver. When she didn’t come home to Diyon at the end of the day, her friends became worried, fearing the worst.
In the days since, they have been awash in anger, sadness — and hope, knowing that Amarasingha’s loss has left a little boy alone, but not without those to care for him.
Helping Diyon, says Uthpala Ahangama, is a debt owed to a mother whose giving spirit knew no bounds.
“As a person, she would go out of her way to help people — her whole life was her son — and helping others,” she says.
Says Anoshan Ahangama: “Our goal is to make sure Diyon’s life — his education, his needs — everything — get taken care of.
“He has lost his mother. He had no one else.”