It would have been their first Father’s Day together as a family – but instead, Kiranbir Bhangu is spending it as a widow in the company of her six-year-old son, Royce.
Royce’s father, Karanpal Bhangu, was murdered while working the night shift at a Mill Woods Mac’s store in December 2015.
Three masked men barged into the store in the wee hours of the morning in an armed robbery. Bhangu activated the emergency alert, but he was shot in the stomach and died within minutes.
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“According to the medical examiner, that’s all he had, was three minutes after he got the bullet. It was too late,” said Kiranbir.
The couple met at a wedding in India. Soon after Royce was born, Kiranbir moved to Canada to go to school and become a teacher.
“You wanted to have a better future for your children,” she said.
“Part of that is also safety. You feel like these countries are safer.”
Karanpal dreamed of also leaving India for better opportunities in Canada. But it would be five years and seven months before he and Royce would reunite with Kiranbir in Edmonton.
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When Karanpal arrived in Edmonton in August 2015, he fell in love with the Canadian winter.
“He loved the snow,” his wife recalled. “The day this thing happened, he got out of the house and he’s calling me from the parking lot. I’m thinking he forgot something. So I’m like, ‘What now Karan?” and he goes ‘It’s snowing outside! Go get Royce and enjoy the snow.'”
In the time leading up to his death, the family was very active.
“I don’t remember any weekend or any time that we had together, since they came – in those four months – that we spent at home. We were always out in the parks, enjoying.”
Karanpal would have turned 36 on Monday, June 13. Holidays and anniversaries that Kiranbir used to look forward to are now difficult to endure.
From the outset, she was nervous about her husband working overnights. Back in India, he held a Masters in public administration and a bachelors degree in information technology.
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“His employer was so impressed with him, the way he would work – being so responsible and stuff. He’d say, ‘You should be the manager, not a night shift employee’ and he would say, ‘It’s okay, I’m not going to work here for long – just a couple months. I’ll find something else.'”
He told his wife he felt safe at work – even though there was one time where a man came in bleeding from his head and threatening to kill him. Karanpal wasn’t initially forthcoming in sharing that story with his wife.
“I was like, ‘Why wouldn’t you tell me that?’ And Karan was like, ‘You wouldn’t allow me to go to work the next day. I knew you wouldn’t let me go to work.'”
In December Karanpal was killed in the same store.
“All of a sudden it’s all been taken away,” said Bhangu, her eyes welling with tears.
“He was a son, he was a brother, he was my husband. He was a father, who my child will be missing this Father’s Day.”
Tears stream down Kiranbir’s face as she thinks of her son.
“Now he will tell me he misses dad. He misses dad when he goes to the park.”
Kiranbir said she still has unanswered questions, six months after her husband’s death.
“All of this just doesn’t make sense to me. I still cannot wrap my head around it. How could this happen to me? I don’t know if I have accepted it or not. I’m still working on it.”
But as the pair grieves, Kiranbir pulls strength from her family and friends.
“The prayers, the thoughts they did for me, I felt that. Otherwise there was no other way I could have survived it.”