Family says goodbye to stabbing victim son
Legions of friends on hand to mourn slain 21-year-old
CALGARY — Ronda-Lee Rathwell always knew her boy Zackariah was something special. As a young man bursting with creativity, he was confidently readying himself for a life in the spotlight.
Still, she long suspected her motherly bias might have been a touch unrealistic. Thanks to his friends, who this past week have filled her griefstricken home with loving and joyful memories, Ronda-Lee Rathwell now knows she might have even underestimated her oldest of two much-loved boys: “I have come to realize he was an even better person than I thought he was.”
Like so many other bereaved parents, Ronda- Lee learned of those other dimensions of her son only after losing him. Zackariah was one of five young people stabbed to death at a house party in Calgary on April 15. An invited guest, Matthew de Grood, 22, is charged with five counts of firstdegree murder in the deaths.
On the same day that de Grood made his first court appearance via closed circuit TV yet another church in the city was overflowing with mourners.
The atmosphere Tuesday afternoon at Centre Street Church in Calgary was one of joyful reflection on the life of 21-year-old Zackariah. In the crowd, Rathwell’s minor hockey teammates, his rugby mates, former teachers and current college instructors mingled with the legions of friends he gathered over his short time on earth.
To his little brother Mason Rathwell, he was the cool guy while Mason was the “dorky little brother” who so wanted to be just like Zackariah. “Zack was always better, with one exception: school,” said Mason, a comment that elicits laughter from the audience.
Zackariah’s father Bruce Rathwell told the crowd about how his 10-pound newborn was so eager to enter the world, “for his first breath he tore a small hole in his lung” and had to be squeezed into an incubator made for tiny preemies.
“He was the poster child every parent wished for,” said Rathwell.