Countless valuables were stolen from Else Marie Kristiansen and her son on Dec. 27.
Hunting and fishing equipment, electronics and jewelry, were all snagged by thieves who busted in their front door while they were away. But among the items with hefty price tags were a few things nobody could put a price on.
The thieves stole her heart.
When Kristiansen's youngest son, Steven, died at age 22 in a car crash, she had his remains divided and placed in three pewter hearts. One was for her, and the other two were for Steven's older brothers.
They each were placed in small velvet boxes and closed with a brass clasp. Else kept her heart on a shelf, alongside a handcarved box filled with Steven's guitar picks. Also on the shelf was a wicker basket, where she has kept what little change he'd had when he died.
"Anything that he would have touched," she says, is what she kept close to her. And the pewter heart is something she would hold when she needed to be near him.
The heart fits nicely inside two hands, and has been a source of comfort for the last five and a half years.
The back is sealed with an emblem with his name — Steven Quinn Kristiansen and the logo for the Bakerview Crematorium and Celebration Centre.
Of all the things she would like to have replaced, that pewter heart is the most important.
She is appealing to whoever has this heart, be it the thief or someone else, to please return it.
In the meantime, she's borrowing one of the two remaining hearts for comfort.
"It's a keepsake, you sit and hold it when you need to," she says.
Why anyone would want it is beyond her imagination. She assumes whoever took it assumed it was a jewelry box.
Steven died on his 22nd birthday, alongside his friend Kaleb Jack, in Mission. Steven had graduated from Mission secondary and planned to join the RCMP.
Anyone with information about the robbery, on Dec. 27 near Yale Road and Broadway, or the whereabouts of the heart, is asked to call the Chilliwack RCMP non-emergency line at 604-792-4611.
Above all, Kristiansen is hoping whoever has the heart will drop it off at the police station.