A bumblebee buzzing around in March is helping a grieving family in Windsor, Ont.
Breanne Duval – nicknamed Bee – died in a two-vehicle collision on Lauzon Parkway in February.
“You feel like your soul got ripped out,” is how Curtis Duval, Breanne’s father describes their grief.
“This is just a bad dream,” stepmother Stephanie Duval hopes every morning. “And then and I wake up and it was not a bad dream.”
On Feb. 25, Breanne Duval’s sedan crashed into the side of a pickup truck on Lauzon Parkway at Hawthorne Drive.
The truck had a snow plow attached on the front and was loaded with salt, according to Curtis.
“That’s all we know,” he says, noting the investigation is not complete.
Yet the result of that investigation matters very little to this shattered family as it doesn’t change the “nightmare” they say they’re living.
“How could they (God) take Bree away from us at the prime her life?” Stephanie questions.
Breanne Duval, a registered nurse and proud owner of two rescue dogs, was just 25 years old.
“Why does God hate me?” Curtis wonders through tears. “I feel selfish saying that. You know I’m not the one who died but I wish I was sometimes.”
Bumblebee sighting
Then, two weeks after her death a seemingly random natural occurrence has dimmed that grief, if only for a moment.
“I was sitting on the porch, and it was early. Curtis is still in bed. And I’m like, what is that in the front grass?” Stephanie explains. “So, I go look, and it’s a bumblebee. It’s March 11th and it’s a bumblebee!”
Stephanie got a video and then ran to get Curtis; who admits he was having a bad morning and had no interest in coming outside.
“I put my hand down in the grass,” Curtis explains “And, the bee is crawling around my hand and I’m like, oh my God!”
“I can feel the fuzz from the bumblebee as it’s crawling on my fingers and you know, and I’m like, it’s got to be Bree.”
The Duval’s say their daughter had a life-long love of bees; she called herself Bee, she had a bee tattoo on her right forearm, bees were a common feature in her clothing and the decorations around her home.
She even drove a Volkswagen beetle.
“The fact that she loved bumblebees was so appropriate because she was basically a bumblebee. Going from flower to flower, making sure everybody was pollinated. You know what I mean?” Curtis tells CTV News. “She wanted everyone to be happy around her.”
When the bumblebee stayed around their east Windsor home for what seemed like more than five minutes, the family believes it was a sign from their deceased daughter.
“It just it made me feel like Bree was letting us know she was okay,” Curtis says.
“It really did give us peace.” Stephanie adds. “It was a sign. She was saying she’s okay.”
The Duval’s wouldn’t describe themselves as religious, but they say they always believed in ‘something bigger’.
“It’s been something that I’ve always thought about,” Stephanie says. “I really hope when I’m gone that I can watch over my family. That’s what I hope for. And nobody really, truly knows.”
“And then something like that (the bumblebee) happens, it just gave me a lot of hope,” Curtis says.
Curtis has been posting his raw emotions over the loss of his daughter on social media, as a coping mechanism.
When he posted the bumblebee video, he says he was overwhelmed by the response from his friends and strangers.
“Everyone wants a sign after somebody passes,” Curtis says. “You have such an empty feeling.. and.. inside.. you feel like your soul got ripped out.”
For this one moment, the Duval’s say they felt a sense of calm in what they describe as a “bittersweet irony”.
“I just feel like she knew I needed it at that point,” Curtis says. “I don’t know if the bee was her or was just a messenger or what, but, you know, it just… I needed it that day. I really did. And it just touched my heart.”
Two other unexplainable occurrences
As if the bee wasn’t startling enough, the Duval’s have also had two other strange occurrences.
After Breanne died, no one could find a family heirloom ring she wore every day; it wasn’t at the hospital, her condo or inside her car even though police went through it “with a fine-tooth comb” Curtis says.
A friend searched her car one last time after it was released by the police.
“(The friend) looked down on the floor of the passenger seat and rubbed his hand across the glass and lo and behold, there’s the ring sitting right there,” Curtis says.
The ring belonged to Breanne’s mother’s side of the family and getting it back was for Breanne’s mother, what the bee meant to Curtis.
“That ring just meant so much to her (Breanne’s mother),” he says.
Finally, on St. Patrick’s Day, Breanne’s best friend got a call from her phone which had already been deactivated and wiped by her employer.
“One thing? Unexplainable. Two things? Unexplainable. Three things? Come on, it’s just a little too much,” Curtis notes. “It puts a little bit of my heart back in that was ripped out I think.”
“It gave me peace knowing that she was.. she’s with us and it was a sign.. saying she’s okay,” Stephanie adds.
The Duval’s have been grateful for the “incredible” outpouring of support from their family, friends and employers.
They say they’re taking their struggle one day at a time and trying to reflect on the legacy of Breanne Duval.
“She was fiercely loyal,” Stephanie says. “When you were in her circle, she was a breath of fresh air and she made people feel good all the time.”
