 Nancy Manocchio kisses her six-year-old son Michael yesterday. A binder containing Michael's medical history, his mother's notes and treasured memories was in the family SUV when it was stolen Tuesday. (Michael Peake, QMI Agency)
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TORONTO - Nancy Manocchio pleaded tearfully with the people who stole her SUV to keep the truck but return her son's life to her.
Six-year-old Michael is autistic and his medical documents, personal notes and photos were kept in a black-and-green binder.
But that binder disappeared along with her 2008 black Toyota Highlander, taken from the family's Stayner Ave. home, in the Castlefield Rd.-Dufferin St. area, Tuesday morning.
Manocchio said the binder was in the vehicle because she had to fax some documents to doctors on Monday.
"That binder is Michael's life," Manocchio said Wednesday. "If something happens to me, somebody can refer to that book.
"I put notes in there: 'Michael likes this, Michael's allergic to that.' It has everything about Michael," she added.
Manocchio said the theft of the book "just breaks my heart."
She is asking garbage workers to keep an eye out for it in bins, but she's also urging the person who drove off with the vehicle to somehow return the binder.
"You know what? I don't care about the vehicle, I don't care about anything (else) that was in there," a tearful Manocchio said. "Just that book.
"Please. I'm sure they've got a heart, and I'm sure they have a family, a brother or a sister or a nephew, someone that" is in a similar plight, she said. "It's so important.
"Michael doesn't have words. He can't speak and ... I am his mother and I speak for him," Manocchio said. "That book says so much about him and it explains everything that we've been through in the past six years.
"And we've gone through so much as a family just trying to get him help and I've poured so much love into that book," she said.
"There are special things in there, too, personal notes I've written to Michael that I hope one day he will be able to pick it up and go through it and see how much his mother has fought for him."
The documents record Michael's medical history, which began with surgery when he was two weeks old, Manocchio said.
"Every therapist, every doctor, every test, every diagnosis is in that book," she said.
"I would walk around with that binder all the time because every time we go to a doctor, we either have to explain, show them documents," said Mannocchio, a mother of three, including Anthony, 8, and Michael's fraternal twin, Matthew.
She said it was Anthony who discovered the truck was missing around 8 a.m. Tuesday.
"Then it just all started coming, like, all the emotions, 'This was in there. Oh, my God, Michael's book is in there,' and that's when I was a wreck," she said.
Her husband checked out nearby gas stations because the SUV was low on gasoline, but he found nothing.
Anyone with information about the theft is asked to call Toronto Police at 416-808-1300.
rob.lamberti@sunmedia.ca
