Lindsey Bonchek’s life wasn’t always easy, but her family is remembering her as a fighter who’d do anything to take care of her three kids. Bonchek, her nine-year-old daughter Madeline and four-year-old son Jackson were three out of four victims of a blaze that tore through an Oshawa home on Monday morning. Bonchek’s son Ben – a teenager with special needs – was the only member of the family to survive. Bonchek had loved her kids ferociously, according to her cousin Rachel Honsberger, who spoke to the Star about the “uncommonly generous” single mother on Tuesday afternoon. Read more:2 children among 4 people killed in Oshawa house fire“She did not have very much, but if you needed something, she was there. Be it her time and energy or her assistance, she was always willing to help,” Honsberger said. As the oldest of her siblings and among the oldest of her cousins, Bonchek was “really our pack leader,” Honsberger added. Bonchek was a peacemaker, brought the family together, and took care of everyone. She’d become a mother to Ben when she was still young herself, and parenting a child with disabilities wasn’t always a simple path. “Finding resources and money to take care of children with special needs, it’s not always easy. It’s very tough,” Honsberger said. “But she really did the best with what she had, and that’s the thing about Lindsey: she wasn’t a quitter. She really was a devoted mom. She loved those kids … I have no doubt that she died trying to save her kids from that awful fate.”In the wake of the tragedy, Ben has been left without his mother and siblings. “Ben has been left alone, with only the shirt on his back, and will require some form of care for the rest of his life,” a GoFundMe page set up by the family to cover funeral expenses and care costs reads. Since the fire, the family has also been recall ...
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