Thank you Jurors, Judge, Police Services, Crown Prosecutor, Victim/Witness Assistance Office
The legal process was not one we were familiar with. Support from police services, the crown, the victim witness assistance program and others was amazing and so important. We are very thankful that we have such a professional caring team that helped us through the process and with much compassion.
Even the media played a significant role that we had to learn to navigate. At times it felt as though we were under a microscope. But we understood that we needed to inform our community and shed light on the situation. The media have been incredibly compassionate and kind. They have a job to do but they did so professionally, with humour even, and with respect for our situation.
The part in the trial that we were really unclear and concerned about was the jury. There was so much information for them to process – truth, fiction, legal definitions, graphic descriptions and more. And there was so much more that we wished we could tell them to help them understand better. Who Nathan was, what the picture clearly was. When they retired for the night we were concerned – to us it was so clear. But then we realized they were being thorough and putting all the pieces together. We had almost 2 years to do this and had been through the preliminary hearing and even then the picture was only coming together during the trial. The jurors only had 9 days to absorb everything.
We want to thank each and every juror. You were attentive and thorough. The information was difficult to absorb and process – traumatic, in fact. It was not a job for which you volunteered, but you did it well. Thank you for your time and professionalism.
Tim, Mona, Jessica
Thank you to our family, friends and community:
Thank you for the love and support. For walking this journey with us that began August 28, 2016 – the day we all lost Nathan.It has been a difficult 2.5 years with many lows and highs and you have helped to keep us going, pulled us out and kept us connected. Our world will never be the same. We lost our son and brother but have gained a stronger community.
The support we have received from people in our system has been phenomenal – police services, victim assistance office, crown prosecutor, and others we are not even aware of. These people deal with parts of our society that most of us are not exposed to. Thank you to this hard-working group who are so compassionate.
To our family, friends and community we can only say thank you from the very very bottom of our hearts. Your love and support has been the Band-Aid that has helped ease the pain, and the carrot and stick that kept us going and pulled us out. Thank you for the trees, meals, songs, hugs, messages, massages, check-ins, driving to be with us, sitting in court with us, impact statements, parties, memorial fund, donations, celebrations, stories, photos, events, and your caring!
We have struggled at times with the public exposure of our lives. There has also been much respect for our privacy and grief. Our continuing journey to bring awareness of our system and battle issues within our system is to hopefully give back to our community and make it a safer, better system.
Our work with the memorial fund and community initiatives is to contribute to our community with the values that we taught our children and what Nathan has come to stand for.
We will continue with the next segment of our journey. A journey that we look forward to travelling with you, our community. Watch for more events and community initiatives. A journey with friends is a journey with love!
Tim, Mona, Jessica, Gyzmo and Apollo