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A “sweet and thoughtful” little girl, Anna Bielli loved to sing and share – often even saving half her sandwich for her mother.
Taken from her by the Thames River in London, Karen Fermill says she now longs to give her seven-year-old daughter a final hug.
The bereaved London woman found out from police that a child’s body found in the river Sunday near Western University after a three-day search matched the description of her eldest child, who was swept away in the river’s strong currents during a family park outing near their Kipps Lane home on Aug. 1.
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“I was hoping there was a chance she was still alive, but I was relieved when they found her,” Fermill said. “I didn’t want to lose her forever in the water.”
A mother of three, including a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son, Fermill said she’d taken her children to a shallow, sandy area along the side of the river to cool off their feet after they spent hours playing in the nearby North London Athletic Fields.
When it was time to go, she briefly had her back turned before she realized Anna – who apparently had fallen into the river – was in the water, being carried away in its storm-fueled currents.
Fermill, who can’t swim, said she desperately tried to get to her daughter, yelled for help and called 911 but couldn’t save Anna.
Neighbours and members of Fermill’s church, the Anchor Church on Highbury Avenue North, have been trying to console and help the 39-year-old through her terrible ordeal, lending a hand with household chores and dropping by to offer their sympathies and bring food.
“It shows how much they love my daughter. The love in this neighbourhood is enormous,” said Fermill, a Filipino immigrant to Canada who moved to London five years ago.
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Fermill said she will see her daughter after post-mortem arrangements are completed.
“I asked them to take care of her, to make sure her dress is dry because she’s still my baby,” she said. “Once they’re done . . . I’m going to the hospital to see her and give her a last hug.”
A pupil at Northbrae public school in northeast London, Anna always looked forward to meeting her friends at church on Sundays and loved to sing, her mother said.
“I tried my best as a mom,” she said as she held her daughter’s last birthday gift – a blueberry pie-scented stuffed bear, which she says she will smell forever.
“It’s so hard to lose her,” she said.
Many in the neighbourhood are thinking of Fermill and her family, residents say.
“I’m heartbroken and cannot even fathom as a mom how she must be feeling,” Pam Van Goethem said as she held the hand of one of her two eight-year-old sons.
What happened to the family at the riverside – especially after all the heavy rainstorms that left the Thames swollen – could happen to anyone, Van Goethem said.
“It all could happen in the blink of an eye to any parent, let alone with the amount of rain lately. We as a community need to rally around this mom and build her up. She needs our support.” she said.
Jessy Roy and her eight-year-old son, Alfred, a playmate of Anna and her younger sister, were among those who dropped by to bring food to Fermill and her family.
A “caring and loveable girl,” Anna always helped her mother around the home, including to care for her younger siblings, said Roy.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s really heartbreaking – seven years old,” she said.
– With file by Noah Brennan, The London Free Press
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@BeaBaleeiro
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