Family, community remembers Burnaby dad who died saving his son from drowning

A loving husband; a caring father; a kind neighbour.

That’s how Bakir Junaideen, a resident of the Heights neighbourhood in Burnaby, is being remembered after his untimely death earlier this month.

He’s also being remembered as a hero. The 57-year old father of two died trying to save his nine-year-old son after the tube he was in capsized on the Alouette River in Maple Ridge on July 31.

Junaideen’s wife, Farzana, told the Beacon that her husband jumped into the river to rescue their son without a second thought, and managed to push him towards a bystander who got him out of the water.

But in the chaos, Junaideen himself didn’t manage to surface.

When Farzana raised the alarm, two off-duty firefighters who were in the area found her husband and performed CPR on him—but by that point, he had spent about seven minutes underwater.

Junaideen was rushed to Ridge Meadows Hospital, and spent several days on life support before he ultimately died on Aug. 3.

“It feels like a nightmare,” Farzana told the Beacon.

Farzana is traumatized from witnessing the entire incident, and said the images will remain in her head.

Her sons, aged nine and 12, are doing OK at the moment. She’s had time now to discuss what happened with them, and they both attended Junaideen’s funeral and burial service.

But she’s still worried about how they’re going to deal with the loss of their father, a huge change in their lives.

“It’s going to hit us in every way. It might come high, it might come low,” she said.

Junaideen, who worked in web and graphic design, was the primary breadwinner for his family.

But Farzana said it was more than just a job for him—he had a true passion for building and designing websites, and his involvement with the community meant that he often helped out neighbourhood groups and associations with their projects.

“I always say he loved to design, but he actually was a writer as well,” Farzana said.

“A lot of the time he would also write the content for the websites.”

The family has lived in Burnaby for about 12 years now. Junaideen was involved with—and an integral part of—numerous community groups, including the Heights Neighbourhood Association, Sri Lankan community groups, a local cricket team, his childrens’ soccer team, and more.

But you didn’t have to be part of a community group to get to know him.

“Their house was like a hub, it was like another community amenity for the neighbourhood. Because they had such an open door policy. It was always, ‘Oh, come in for coffee, come in, have something to eat’. And [he was always] welcoming, warm, never too busy to entertain or to invite you and spend a few minutes chatting,” said the Junaideens’ friend Renu Goodenough.

“You never could pass by their house without seeing one of them outside. Or several of them. And always with a friendly wave.”

Goodenough and her two children would often accompany the Junaideens on weekend trips out of town, most recently to Whistler last year.

One of her favourite memories of Junaideen comes from a trip they took to Seattle. No visit to that city is complete without paying homage to the iconic gum wall, and so that’s where they took the kids over and over again.

Goodenough noticed a small commotion, but didn’t notice what was going on until Junaideen caught her attention.

“He just kind of nudges me and points up to the top [of the wall]—and I have no idea how he got up there, but he had put the initials ‘CNKZ’, for Coen, Kira, Nabeel, and Zaid, all four of our kids. And I was just thinking, ‘How the heck did you get up there to do that?” she said.

“That would be kind of his way of doing things, with this mischievous look in his eye. He would do these things, and then point them out kind of you know, quietly, but with pride, and just get a kick out it. … It’s a bittersweet memory, right? Because he’s not there to do those things anymore.”

Goodenough said Junaideen had immense pride in his two boys—something that always came out when he watched their soccer games.

In the days since the accident, Farzana says the breadth of Junaideen’s impact on his friends and neighbours has become even more evident.

Dozens of Heights residents organized a prayer walk for him while he was on life support in the hospital, and there has been a steady stream of people dropping by the house to deliver food, prayers, and condolences.

A GoFundMe set up to help the family weather the next few months (as Farzana needs to take time off work) has also garnered nearly $80,000 in donations so far.

“I can’t imagine how he created such a big community,” Farzana said.

“This is the way to live—he gathered every crowd [together].”