{"id":25674,"date":"2020-01-16T17:47:44","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T22:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25674"},"modified":"2020-01-23T18:54:51","modified_gmt":"2020-01-23T23:54:51","slug":"she-was-the-most-wonderful-person-i-ever-met","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/she-was-the-most-wonderful-person-i-ever-met\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cShe was the most wonderful person I ever met\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They were beautiful inside and out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is how Dr. Parisa Eghbalian and her daughter, Reera Esmaeilion,\nare being remembered by the people left behind after losing their lives in a\nTehran plane crash early last Wednesday morning that killed 176.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Eghbalian, who was born and raised in Iran, was\nco-owner of Aurora E&E Dentistry on Wellington Street East with her\nhusband, Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion. Having moved to Canada in 2010, the family had\nstrong roots in Aurora, Richmond Hill and Caledon, opening up their Aurora\npractice in 2017 with the philosophy of \u201crespect, caring and listening\u201d being\ncentral to their approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Parisa and Reera are understood to have returned to\nIran over the holidays to attend a family wedding and were due to return to\nCanada \u2013 and be welcomed home by Dr. Hamed \u2013 after transferring to a connecting\nflight from the fatal Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, which left\nTehran on January 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It crashed shortly after take-off, leaving victims\u2019\nfamilies \u2013 and international governments \u2013 searching for answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid escalating tensions between the United States and\nIran in the first week of 2020, the potential for a conflict in the Region was\nbeing watched closely by, among others, including Manijeh Ghotbi, the Office\nAdministrator at Aurora E&E Dentistry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Ghotbi tells The Auroran she was closely monitoring\nthe situation on the evening of January 7, checking in with Dr. Hamed just\nbefore she went to bed around 10.15 p.m., to make sure Dr. Parisa and Reera had\nsafely left the country. Dr. Hamed, she recalls, told her they had just boarded\nthe flight 45 minutes before and was told before take-off that everything was\nokay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the morning, I woke up and turned on the TV to see\nwhat happened to see if war was going to start and I saw the news that the\nUkrainian airplane had crashed,\u201d says Ms. Ghotbi. \u201cI knew they were in a\nUkrainian airplane and I didn\u2019t even want to think about it. It sounds\nterrible, but I was hoping it was another Ukrainian plane and not theirs. I\ncalled Dr. Hamed to see what was going on and he didn\u2019t answer \u2013 and then I\nthought something was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking for answers, she came into the Aurora office to\ngather contact information of the family\u2019s friends. It was there, she heard\nback from Dr. Hamed that something tragic had happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was crying, devastated,\u201d she says, noting he shortly\nthereafter began making preparations to return to Iran to identify the remains\nof his wife and daughter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As news began to break, Aurora E&E Dentistry was\ninundated with calls of condolence, as well as patients and friends delivering\nflowers, candles and other mementos, adding \u201cDr. Hamed so appreciates everyone\nwho was beside us through the week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Dr. Parisa] was the most wonderful person I have ever\nmet,\u201d says Ms. Ghotbi, who knew the dentist for three years as an employee.\n\u201cShe had a very big smile, was funny, happy and full of energy, and she always\nmade you smile. She was very wonderful, very pretty and beautiful inside and\nout. She was very nice with patients, helping them and making them very\ncomfortable. Whoever came here to the office, they wouldn\u2019t think it was a\ndental practice, but a second home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReera was so cute, funny, pretty, and nice. She was very\ntalented, bright and smart. She spoke three languages \u2013 Farsi, English and\nFrench \u2013 fluently with her reading and writing. She came here some of the days\nafter school and she was very friendly with the little kids here when they came\ninto the office. She could make a connection to anybody very easily. She was so\nfriendly with the biggest smile, big beautiful green eyes. It is hard to even\ntalk about them like this. It is hard not having them around anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of the dental practice, the family was remembered\nin other parts of the community, including over at the Aurora Public Library,\nwhere the couple donated books for Farsi-speaking readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur deepest condolences to the Iranian community who\nlost their loved ones on Flight 752 en-route from Tehran,\u201d said the Library,\nposting to social media a photo of Dr. Parisa with an array of books she and Dr.\nHamed had donated for the Farsi community. \u201cDr. Parisa Eghbalian and their\ndaughter, Reera, will be missed by our Library community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As municipal flags were lowered across the community,\nMayor Tom Mrakas also offered his condolences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am deeply saddened to hear about the plane crash in\nTehran that claimed the lives of all 176 passengers and crew on board,\nincluding 63 Canadians,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas in a statement. \u201cOur condolences and\nprayers are extended to the families of the victims and the local Iranian\ncommunity. We grieve with you. I am also heartbroken to hear that Aurora\ndentist Dr. Parisa Eghbalian and her daughter were two of those killed in the\ncrash. This is beyond comprehension for many in our community and our thoughts\nare with Dr. Eghbalian\u2019s family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lives of the victims of Flight 752 were remembered in a vigil hosted in Oak Ridges at the Dr. Bette Stephenson Centre for Learning by the York Region District School Board, the York Catholic District School Board, the York Regional Police and the City of Richmond Hill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Parisa Eghbalian and daughter, killed in Tehran plane crash, remembered by community<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/2020-01-09-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6G6","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 09:53:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}