“He was the love of my life.”
Needless to say, Chey Lynn Moizer is in deep grief after her boyfriend, Moe, died in a tent fire under the Oak Street Bridge last week.
On Monday morning, she was at the site, surveying the burnt remains of the site and trying to come to terms with her grief.
But there is barely a moment for Moizer to grieve.
She herself is without permanent housing and is sleeping on a chair at a friend’s place.
“There’s nowhere I can go and sleep and let it all sink in,” she told the Richmond News.
Flowers and notes have been left at a makeshift memorial at the site where the tent burned.
Moe had moved to the Oak Street Bridge area, just behind Costco, to be close to Moizer who was living for a short period of time in the new temporary modular building, Aster Place.
Moizer wasn’t with Moe the night of the fire, and she wonders if she’d been there, if she could have helped.
“If I was here with him when it happened, it wouldn’t have happened,” Moizer said. “I have to live with that.”
With homeless people being kicked off private properties, under the bridge is one of the places they can occupy.
But it's a dark and isolated spot where they “felt the darkness,” Moizer said, not a place to be living.
“Trolls live under bridges,” she said. “There’s nothing good that can come from living under here.”
Moizer remembers her boyfriend as being “smart and kind,” and that he loved kids.
Whenever he saw kids approaching, he’d yell out “kids on the block” in case anyone was doing drugs – to protect the kids, she said.
Moe was also protective of his friends, Moizer added, and especially of her.
Police were called to the scene around noon last Wednesday after Richmond Fire-Rescue discovered the body inside the tent after putting out the fire.
Richmond RCMP say their initial investigation didn't indicate the death was criminal in nature, but they are still awaiting results from BC Coroners Service.
