 Deborah Chevalier and Mohamed "John" Kajouji in their missing daughter, Nadia's bedroom. (SUN MEDIA/Ernest Dorozsuk)
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TORONTO -- On a warm spring day, yellow ribbons encircle the trees on their front lawn, in vain.
They sent her off to Carleton University last fall --a popular, outgoing Ontario scholar with everything to live for. They trusted all the recruitment brochures that promised their daughter Nadia would be safe as she left their nest for the very first time.
Now Deborah Chevalier and Mohamad "John" Kajouji are left alone in their Brampton home, facing the heart-breaking realization the only child they share is never coming home.
And they place the blame squarely on the school they entrusted with her care.
Yesterday marked four weeks since the 18-year-old public affairs student disappeared from her dorm room, telling a friend online she was going skating despite a blizzard that had blanketed Ottawa with 52 cm of snow. She left behind her wallet and her music blaring and took only her skates, phone, journal and university access card.
She hasn't been seen since.
In these past four weeks, her parents have learned their happy, successful teenager was, in fact, struggling terribly on this first foray away from them. She had just been home for reading week so they knew that her grades had slipped recently, that she'd broken up with her boyfriend and was unhappy in residence.
What they didn't know was Nadia had been found drunk on campus, was hospitalized twice for fainting spells, had seen a counsellor for depression, and had been prescribed sleeping pills and an anti-depressant by doctors at the university.
It was as if the police investigators were telling them about a completely different girl than the one they knew.
We send our kids off to university or college a year sooner than we went ourselves, but are they really ready for life on their own? Should the university be held accountable? Or is it the understandable scapegoat for parents dealing with an unfathomable loss?
They sit far apart on the sofa, the stress of this last month pushing them to their own corners of grief. Back and forth they have travelled to Ottawa, combing every street, every bank of the canal, in a desperate hunt for their girl.
Her broken father believes university and police callousness meant their chances of success were doomed from the start. Nadia disappeared late March 9 and her roommates reported her missing the next day. But the university didn't inform her parents until Wednesday.
MET WITH NONCHALANCE
Three days gone, they turned in panic to Ottawa Police but were initially met with equal nonchalance. "They screwed it up from Day 1," her dad charges. "They told me, 'We have 4,000 kids go missing from the Ottawa area every year. Yours is not the only daughter to go missing.' I didn't get answers until a week and a half later."
Yet so many questions remain. Was Nadia suicidal? Was she the victim of an accident? And most importantly, they want to know why no one warned them their daughter was so troubled.
"All they say to you is that she's 18," her father complains, "and we can't say anything to you."
And by law, they are right. At 18, our children are considered adults. But for a parent, they are still -- and always -- your baby.
Last week, they returned to Ottawa to try and speak to their daughter's doctors but were rebuffed because of patient confidentiality.
Kajouji was told by his own doctor patients on Nadia's anti-depressant should be monitored because it can cause suicidal thoughts.
"How can you give someone medication that has to be supervised when they're alone in a strange city with no support?" her mother demands.
The police searches have been called off. They now wait for the melting snow and ice to yield more clues.
"I think my daughter is somewhere in that river, I do," her father admits, the tears slipping down his cheeks. "I have hope, but I'm hoping for a miracle. In my heart, I know as soon as the ice melts, my daughter's body is going to show up.
"My daughter is gone," he adds, sobbing, "and they can't even have the decency to look for her. I have to wait for them to find a bag of bones they'll have to identify with dental charts."
In the meantime, they feel they can do nothing more than warn others preparing to send their children away to school for the first time.
"They paint a bloody rosy picture during recruiting," Nadia's mother says bitterly. "They lead you to believe they'll look out for them. Don't believe them. Don't believe them because once your child is there, they're on their own.
"We sent her out a shining star completely well-rounded in every aspect of her life, and then something went terribly wrong and they left her to rot.
"Nadia deserved a hell of a lot more than what she got from them. All of our children do."
