Paule Seeger continues to grieve one year after her 15-year-old son Tristan died by homicide.
The teenager was struck by a vehicle on Oct. 21, 2023, in a hit-and-run. He died in hospital the following day.
Seeger said it was plasma and blood donations that kept Tristan alive in hospital long enough for friends and family to come to say their goodbyes.
On the one-year anniversary of the incident, Seeger is asking everyone who is able to make a blood or plasma donation in Tristan's name with Canadian Blood Services.
"People can go down at any time and donate in his memory," Seeger said but added that she has reserved time slots for people who join the team to go on Oct. 21 and 22.
The 91大黄鸭 clinic at Orchard Park Shopping Centre takes plasma donations, but Seeger said donations in Tristan's name can be made at any of the blood or plasma clinics by simply letting the staff know.
"If you .. all of your donations throughout the year count towards the total. My challenge is for the rest of the year I'd like us to as a community donate 100 donations."
The donations are one way Seeger is keeping Tristan's memory alive and giving back to the community that helped him.
"When we actually got to the hospital he was in cardiac arrest, he was dead. They brought us in to see him while they were working on him, and I think had that been the last opportunity I had it would have changed how I remembered my time saying goodbye to him."
Plasma and blood donations gave the family time to sit with Tristan, hold his hand, and call friends and family to the hospital to see him one last time.
"Having that time to know the hospital did everything they could. Having that time for the doctors to talk to other specialists and talk about other options. All of that stuff made the closure... It's a painful and horrible experience, but it made us feel that all options had been looked at."
Seeger said Tristan's final moments were peaceful.
"Had there not been blood and plasma, maybe we would have never been able to say goodbye... It's a gift that was given to us that I'll never be able to repay."
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"Justice will never be served because my son is never coming back, so my goal is to make sense of it and to make peace with it and this is one way to do that."
On Sept. 6, 30-year-old Brandon Kazakoff was arrested and charged with dangerous operation causing death, failure to stop or remain at scene of an accident and assault with a weapon, in connection with Tristan's death.
