‘She was our everything and was taken away’

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This article was published 07/10/2023 (770 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A sombre atmosphere filled Calvary Temple Saturday as more than 100 people mourned the death of a single mother who lost her life to an alleged impaired driver.

“Sometimes life deals us things that make no sense,” Pastor Bruce Martin told a silent crowd. “This is one of those times.”

Members of Winnipeg’s South Sudanese community sat in pews, grieving the loss of Akuch Machuor.

They spoke of her kindness, her humbleness and her hard work as a mother of three. She’d cook amazing Sudanese and Canadian dishes, one of her daughters said.

Maciek Mark, her cousin, greeted people at the door before the funeral. He grew up with Machuor, watching her transform from child to mother and health care aide.

“We are devastated by the death,” Mark said. “What God planned is not what we planned.”

Machuor died in a hit-and-run on Fermor Avenue on Sept. 26, four days after her 43rd birthday. It was her second day on the job as a health care aide.

“She’s one of the good girls, very smart girls, and she’s quiet,” Mark said. “I’d never seen her, in her entire life, saying a bad word to anybody, even to her kids.”

Approximately 40 to 50 people gathered daily for vigils to remember Machuor leading up to the funeral. People travelled from the United States and other provinces for the funeral Saturday.

Some attendees had known Machuor for decades, dating back to time spent in an African refugee camp.

Machuor was born in South Sudan and had 45 siblings and half-siblings.

She went to primary school in Kenya and lived in a Kenyan refugee camp as a teenager after being displaced during the second Sudanese civil war.

She arrived in Canada as a refugee in the early 2000s.

“She would try her best to avoid confrontation,” said Dut Bithow, her brother. “She would walk away, be the first to de-escalate.

“Whether you do her wrong, she’d be the first to walk away. That’s who she was.”

She taught her children to be compassionate, respectful and thoughtful of others, said daughter Anyieth, 16.

“Our mother was our rock,” Anyieth said during a short address, flanked by her siblings. “She had one of the hardest jobs in the world, raising three children as a single mom.

“She was our everything and was taken away… We will think of her every day.”

The three teenagers will live with an aunt in the short term; long-term plans are being worked out, Mark said.

The family’s community is supporting the youths and doing “anything that the community can do,” Mark added.

A GoFundMe campaign has started to raise money for the family’s future needs, including housing and school. It had surpassed $10,800 by Saturday evening.

Machuor was crossing the south side of Fermor Avenue around 8:30 p.m. when a motorist in a luxury car struck her after entering the intersection at St. Mary’s Road on a red light.

Kelvin Mark Lavallee, 25, was charged with multiple offences, including dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death and being impaired within two hours of driving. Police say he narrowly missed other motorists.

Machuor was buried at St. Paul’s Anglican Church’s cemetery.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com