By: Monica Thibault (Tony's Mom)

 

The last time I spoke to my son, Anthony, was on the morning of Friday, April 15, 2011, as he was rushing out the door to catch a bus to get to his morning class at Heritage College.He planned on going to Concordia University in film studies. We often joked about my accompanying him to the Oscars as a nominee some day (and not some vacuous starlet...). I was asking him too many questions about whether he had his lunch and if he was dressed warmly enough. He gave me his pointed gaze and said, “Mum....” in his deep, sonorous voice that contained so much meaning. At least I knew what that meant. That I was going to make him late and miss his bus if I kept it up. “Don’t push it,” I said to myself. Time enough for connecting later on... Or so I thought.

 

Anthony was a responsible 19-year-old. At 17, my husband Dave and I had even left him to look after the house (and the cat) for a week when we went south on a trip.When he started to drive, he made us a promise to never drink and drive. He kept that promise. So we paused very little when we left for an overnight stay at our friends’ cottage in Montpellier, an hour’s drive outside of town; leaving Tony to work his evening shift delivering pizzas and making sure his 15-year-old sister Alanna was okay until our return on Saturday afternoon. She called us, hysterical at 6 a.m. Saturday. Anthony had been in a car accident. He had gone to Quyon about 30 km north, to drive her and others home safely from a party. Alanna had ended up in a taxi as his car filled up, so he handed her a $20 bill and said, “I’ll see you at home...” He never made it.A young man, impaired by alcohol and marijuana and fleeing police, lost control of his car and crashed head-on with my son’s. Both drivers died instantaneously.

 

My beautiful boy was gone. At least in the way we had known him up to that point. He is with me always. I feel him. I have him in my head and in my heart. Yes, some of it is memory. But not only recollections of visuals and feelings... Who he was and who he is still affects me and others in powerful ways. Or so I am told.The hardest thing for me is that he was such a good person. He was “turning out” so well. I was looking forward to seeing him grow further (not physically, as he was over 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 260 pounds), but as a human being, a man, a musician, a filmmaker, a husband and a father. Or so I hoped. He had such promise...

 

Where does the love go? Where do my hopes and dreams for him go now?David and I were taught the concept of noblesse oblige: a French expression literally meaning ‘nobility obliges’. We in turn taught this to Anthony and his sister. It is the concept that nobility extends beyond mere entitlements and requires that, whoever claims to be noble, must conduct himself nobly. The person with status and privilege is obliged to fulfill social responsibilities and act with honour, kindliness, generosity and give back... especially to the most vulnerable among us. Funnily enough it is the same concept woven through some pop culture influences such as the Spiderman movie: “To those much is given, much is expected”. Tony loved Spiderman...

 

So in a roundabout way, he is doing just that — through his friends who started and have kept up the Tony’s Promise Campaign and through an annual music festival where donations go to CHEO and to further safe driving awareness.His promise that was made to his father and I and the promise he showed in becoming a good human being have evolved into a campaign and, I would like to think, a positive influence on the world.”