‘LIKE A DIAMOND’
Little Srijan Panthi, tragically killed by a garbage truck on his walk to school, sparkled like a rare jewel in his 10 short years of life.
“It doesn’t matter how much time you spend on this planet,” family friend Kiran Marahatta said at a jampacked Saturday funeral for the little boy. “He was like a diamond for us.”
The boy’s heartbroken father appeared visibly distraught as he welcomed hundreds of mourners arriving in shifts at the CoppolaMigliore Funeral Home in Corona, Queens. They gathered for a sad sendoff to a child recalled fondly as a a bright young student who made friends easily, loved to read and played the flute.
The youngster, killed this past Tuesday in the gruesome accident, quickly found his niche after the family arrived in New York seven years ago from Nepal.
“I saw a lot of potential in
Sri,” said his grandfather Dilip Panthee. “He had dreams, and he also had plans.”
Missing amid the mourners was the boy’s mother Mina, still hospitalized with injuries suffered when she was run down with her son as the two walked together to his school. Many in the crowd were unable to grasp the death of the child whose smiling pictures greeted arrivals in the lobby.
“I don’t know what to say now,” said Srijan’s dance teacher Sangita Chochhun. “He is always in our hearts.
He has not gone anywhere. He is always with us.”
A priest led the ritual chanting as incense swirled throughout the packed room and the steady flow of mourners passed through. Dad Purushottam Panthee was accompanied by older son Parjnjol at the two-hour funeral, with burial of the boy slated to follow at Fresh Pond cemetery.
“I don’t know sorrow better than millions of others,” said the forlorn father.
Srijan and his mom were walking to his school Tuesday when a city garbage truck making a right turn out of a Corona driveway ran them down, with the vehicle’s wheels rolling over the little boy’s chest.
The mother and son were just outside the crosswalk when struck, and the driver was not ticketed or charged in the city’s 18th pedestrian death in the past 30 days.
Mourners, after greeting the boy’s father, piled floral bouquets high atop Srijan’s small casket — to the point where a number of them just fell to the floor.
Family friend Marahatta said Mina Panthi, hospitalized at Elmhurst Hospital Center, will need another surgery in about a month as she continues her recovery.
“She can’t walk,” said Marahatta. “That’s why she has a steel rod in her leg now. The surgery is to fix that.”
The friend also recalled the last time he saw Srijan, during a visit last weekend.
“Last Sunday, when I went to see the family at their home, he was reading a book — ‘The Last Journey,’ ” said Marahatta.