'I Wish You Didn't Leave Us So Soon' Melrose Community Shows Support For Fallen Elementary Student

MELROSE, MA — What was a place of fear, trepidation, and ultimately tragedy is also becoming one of remembrance, love, and honor less than 48 hours later due to the outpouring of the Melrose community.

A seemingly endless row of flower bouquets, hand-written notes, and drawings can be found at the outer gate of the Winthrop Elementary School in memory of nine-year-old Zakaria Bel-Qaid, who died after a tree collapsed on the school’s playground Monday afternoon. What started out as just a few offerings Tuesday morning has grown into dozens of memorials for the “incredibly loving, loyal, determined, confident, silly, and stubborn boy,” as Bel-Qaid’s loved ones described him.

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“Kind, sweet, caring. Why something so good to ever be taken?” one student wrote in a letter to their fallen classmate. “We won’t ever know, but we do know you’ll always be in our minds.”

Also among the hung pieces of paper was a receipt for a $100 donation to the Green Mountain Academy, which was requested by Bel-Qaid’s family to support Zakaria’s passion for skiing and snowboarding, in which he took home multiple awards.

MaryEllen was one of many passersby who left a bouquet and two miniature cars at the site Wednesday afternoon, and she recounted her perspective of the unnerving events that transpired at the beginning of the week.

“When it first happened, we did not know the extent,” MaryEllen told Patch. “We knew that one child had been hurt seriously, and then the next morning that he had died.”

MaryEllen has lived near Winthrop for 30 years, and even briefly spent time as a teacher herself. She expressed confidence in the school community’s ability to get through this difficult time.

“I love all of this for him,” MaryEllen told Patch about the memorial for Bel-Qaid. “I love the school, the kids are great, and I know they will be okay.”

See Also: How Melrose Can Bear The Unbearable

On Monday, between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., the tree from the neighboring Phineas Upham House on 255 Upham St. The home was built in the early 18th century and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1990.

Upham Family Society President Eda George said that the trees are regularly inspected and that three other trees were removed from the property this past Friday. Patch came in contact with someone from the Society at the home Wednesday afternoon; however, they declined to comment.

Melrose Police Lieutenant Paul Norton told Patch that the Department of Public Works had removed the tree from the scene by the end of Monday once State police detectives were finished with their preliminary investigation.