Biggest challenge will be remembering

 

Windsor’s fifth homicide of 2019 has left an infant and a toddler without a father.

On Oct. 21, Justin Greenwood was fatally stabbed near Tecumseh Road West and McKay Avenue, leaving behind two daughters aged six months and two years old.

Losing a parent early in their lives can be a traumatic event for children. Dr. Cory Saunders a local neuro-psychologist, said what will truly define how they move through this is their own resilience as they develop.

According to Saunders, the few memories of their father will fade.

“In all likelihood the two-year-old will not remember. Most individuals have very little recollection of before age five in most cases,” said Saunders. “The six-month-old will remember nothing.”

Twenty years ago, the two daughters of Windsor local Kathy Di Mario suddenly lost their father early in their childhood as well. According to Di Mario, the youngest daughter had trouble remembering him later in her childhood.

“When she was about 13 she couldn’t remember him and it really disturbed her,” said Di Mario. “She used to cry.”

The solution to this was home videos they would watch to bring back those few precious memories they had together.

“Those really, really helped,” said Di Mario.

In a post on the Facebook page of Hailey Cote, the mother of Greenwood’s two daughters, she promises “they will always remember how much of an amazing dad you were and how much you loved them with everything.”

As the closest link to their father, what his daughters will know, if not remember, rests in Cote’s hands.