Community members in Dallas got together on December 30 to a memorial service for Sherin Mathews, the Indian American girl who was found dead at a culvert near home in October.
About 100 people gathered at Dallas’ Restland Funeral Home and Cemetery despite chilly weather to honor the three-year-old toddler on Saturday, reported Dallas News.
They held candles and released doves in the memory of Mathews. A granite bench engraved with her name was unveiled at the newly landscaped site at the cemetery dedicated to young children.
The members also collected stuffed toys to donate in Mathew’s honor. Richardson resident, Eugene Champagne, donated the bench for the memorial.
David Turnblad, a family service counselor at Restland, who was deeply influenced by the sad death of the toddler came up with the idea of dedicating benches.
Turnblad met Champagne through the Nextdoor app when Gene was looking for someone to donate the benches.
“We don’t ever forget anyone, especially someone who’s touched our hearts like she did,” Champagne said. “For all of us it’s a way to heal to put this little memorial together and honoring her the way she should have been honored in the first place.”
The attendees adorned the bench with balloons and sprinkled the bench with flower petals.
“There is nothing more painful on earth than losing a child,” said Dina Alsaid, 2017’s Mrs. Texas Plus America. “There are lessons to be learned from the departing of someone so new to this world. There are great gifts in the loss. Look for the gifts beyond the incomprehensible grief.”
Mathews, who was adopted by Indian American parents Sini Mathews and Wesley Mathews from an orphanage in Bihar, India, was found missing on October 7. After several days of search, police found her body in a culvert, about a mile from her home.
Initially, Wesley Mathews gave a false statement to the police that he punished the girl for not drinking milk by forcing her to stand outside of the house around midnight, and found her missing when he returned. Later, he confessed that the girl chocked to death when he tried force feeding her.
The parents were arrested and put behind bars by the police during the investigation.
Wesley Mathews has been charged with injury to a child, a first-degree felony, and Sini Mathews has been charged with child abandonment or endangerment.
A family court has barred the parents from visiting their three-year-old biological daughter who is now living with her extended family.
The reason for the 3-year-old’s death is yet to be determined by medical examiners.