COPING WITH LOSS OF TEEN
Family, friends brace for Tristan’s funeral
Tristan Morrissette-Perkins cut a handsome figure three weeks ago when he attended his high school prom. His crisp blue suit and brown dress shoes were de rigueur with the Class of 2017 at John Rennie High School in Pointe-Claire.
But the afterglow of grad celebrations came to a sudden and tragic end the evening of July 3 when the 16-year-old was struck and killed by a passenger train on a rail bridge near Lancaster, Ont.
Now the Morrissette-Perkins family is facing their darkest hour as they prepare for their son’s funeral on Saturday.
Since Tristan’s death, hundreds of friends and family members have passed by the family home wedged into a snug corner of Dorval bordered by fences that surround Trudeau International Airport.
Jay Perkins and Julie Morrissette, along with their 14-year-old daughter Allison, are struggling to cope with the loss of a son and brother.
Reminders of Tristan’s abbreviated life remain, as though he might come through the front door at any moment. In the driveway, two street hockey nets sit idle.
“Yep, those are Tristan’s,” Perkins, in tears, said to another hockey father who had come to offer condolences.
Ontario Provincial Police are investigating the fatal accident, though it seems the normally cautious Tristan simply found himself in the wrong place at the worst possible time.
Tristan was one of three teenage boys taking photos with their smartphones on the CN rail bridge, not far from a campsite where he was staying with friends.
Events took a tragic turn when VIA passenger train 669 claimed the track en route from Montreal to Toronto.
Two of the boys just barely saved themselves. Bailey Bilney-Morrissette, 17, leaped from harm’s way, while Billy Dennison, 15, pressed himself against the bridge wall.
Tristan, as agile an athlete as he was, was not spared.
Bailey, his cousin, found him some 10 frantic minutes later. He lay dead, his gentle green eyes still open.
Neither boy witnessed the moment of impact. Tristan’s parents believe he tried to outrun the train, which apparently sounded its horn as it approached the bridge.
“They said his spinal cord was totally fractured, so to me Tristan got hit right on,” Perkins said. “To me, personally, he was still running from the train. He didn’t have a chance.”
The boys thought they would hear the train or feel the vibration of the tracks in time, Billy told CTV news. But they misjudged the speed and stealth of the train, which rail-safety experts call “silent killers.”
The average speed of a VIA train is around 115 km/h. At that clip, it can cover the length of a football field in less than four seconds.
Morrissette said Bailey remains traumatized and has said very little about what happened that fateful evening.
“You have to understand that Bailey and Tristan were more like brothers than cousins, so it’s going to take a while,” she said. “Bailey is a victim, too. He’s going to need some help to get through this.”
In a statement, VIA said: “Our thoughts go to the victim’s family and friends and also to the locomotive engineers.”
VIA also soberly noted “most incidents involving our trains occur when pedestrians circulate on railway property or take unnecessary risks when crossing the tracks.”
There were 46 trespassing fatalities in Canada in 2016.
Hours before the tragic news reached the family in Dorval, Morrissette had been awaiting a reply text from Tristan, who was good about keeping his mother aware of his whereabouts.
She had made an exception and let him stay an extra night with friends at Lancaster Park Campsite, which the family had been visiting for years, but he was to return to Montreal the following day.
“I’m usually very strict,” Morrissette said. “Tristan doesn’t go out and party and do all this stuff. I said, ‘Trist, if you stay there, I expect you to text me. I expect you to check in with me and don’t leave the campsite!’
“Tristan was not a daredevil. He wouldn’t even go on a roller-coaster if it was made of wood.”
But the fun and folly of a short Canadian summer beckoned the teenage boys.
They were seen swimming at the beach and playing football before eventually making their way to the rail bridge, a popular hangout for generations of local teens.
The last text message Morrissette received from Tristan, at 7:23 p.m., said his phone battery was dying.
The locomotive would barrel through less than 30 minutes later.
His parents went to bed that night awaiting word from Tristan. Around 10:30, they received a phone call from a family member saying he’d been hit by a train and taken to hospital.
The parents dressed quickly, took Allison to a neighbour, and headed out. But they didn’t get far before a police car passed with lights flashing.
Morrissette, sensing the moment every parent dreads, approached the officer. “Where is my son?”
The officer replied, “You have to calm down. We have some bad news to tell you. Unfortunately, your son didn’t make it,” recalled Morrissette, sobbing.
“And then my daughter came outside and she was screaming her head off.”
From that nightmarish moment, their tragically detoured lives have become a blur of funeral arrangements and gruesome autopsy reports.
This past Sunday, six days after the incident, they were finally able to see Tristan in a private viewing at the funeral home before he was to be cremated.
Morrissette needed to hold Tristan’s hand and kiss him a final time for some closure.
“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through,” she said.
His many friends and teammates will be among the mourners at Saturday’s funeral at Rideau Memorial Gardens in Dollard-desOrmeaux.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better best friend,” said classmate Patrick Higgins, a former teammate.
“Tristan was a great hockey player and he taught me a lot, not only about sports, but as a person as well . ... He was family to me . ... He was and forever will be a part of me.”
Tristan’s girlfriend, Alia Kadim, said some students viewed him as a “high school jock” but she got to know another side of him — someone who loved life’s simple pleasures, be it gazing at the stars or listening to the patter of rain on a camp trailer roof.
“He decided that only certain people could see that side of him,” Alia said.
Tristan was a formidable hockey player. He was top scorer on his West Island Royals midget AA team this season and was named MVP of the high school team.
He was a “great teammate” who neither gloated in victory nor sulked in defeat, said Larry Sherrard, his former minor hockey coach.
Morrissette said her son was “a sweet kid who never had a bad thought toward anybody.”
“And he would always kiss his mom no matter who was there,” she said, smiling through tears. “Every text he sent me, he would say, ‘I love you.’ ”
Now, every text message, Facebook photo and article of clothing worn by Tristan is a cherished keepsake.
When his camping bag was returned from Lancaster, Morrissette almost emptied its contents into the laundry.
“Then I said, ‘Why am I washing Tristan’s clothes? He’s not coming back.’ So I took his clothes out of the bag and just hung up his stuff because I wanted his smell to stay,” she said, breaking down again.
Plans to redo Tristan’s hockey themed-bedroom, where Habs posters vie with Sidney Crosby for prime wall space, into a young man’s man cave have been stayed indefinitely.
And Tristan’s height measurements, pencilled on the inside door frame, now stand frozen in time at 5-foot, 8.5-inches.
“We’re not moving anything in here,” Perkins said, scanning the room.
“When everything dies down and I have a moment of peace, I just want to spend some time in his room and sleep in his bed,” Morrissette said.
While the family is grateful for the community support they’ve received — a gofundme page has raised more than $23,000 to cover funeral costs, far exceeding the $5,000 goal — they fear the aftermath, when they are left to deal with a lifetime of grief.
Morrissette is haunted by Tristan’s final moments.
“I have a vision every single day of the fear Tristan must have had running from that train. And that fear eats up at me.”
Morrissette even checked the school board website last week to see Tristan’s provincial exam marks, which he easily passed.
Tristan had a line on a summer job and was planning to attend classes at John Abbott College next fall. His long-term goal was to study business administration.
His parents know their lives will never be the same, but they will try to carry on as best they can because, as Perkins said, “that’s what Tristan would want us to do.”
“We’ll get through it,” said Allison, trying to rally her parents from their despair.
They still plan to mark Tristan’s 17th birthday on Aug. 23, though it will surely mean many more tears.
Tristan’s urn, adorned with a hockey motif, will be coming home after Saturday’s funeral.
It will be placed initially in his parents’ room so they can be close to him.
Eventually, Perkins plans to build a “special place” for his son in the basement, along with his hockey sticks and other keepsakes.
“He’s been gone away long enough,” Perkins said, fighting tears.
“We just want Tristan to come home now.”
I have a vision every single day of the fear Tristan must have had running from that train. And that fear eats up at me.