'Mama, Where Is Daddy?': Children Of Uber Driver Killed In Crash

QUOGUE, NY — All was quiet Sunday at the home where the widow of an Uber driver — one of five killed in a head-on Quogue crash exactly one week before — and her three children were left to face an uncertain future without him.

On Sunday morning, one week after police came to her door in Bay Shore to tell her the unthinkable, Hifsa Ahmad, who lost her husband Farhan Zahid in the crash, sat on a bed in her home, two of her three small children sleeping beside her. Her youngest, Ahaan, just 16 months old, was exhausted from crying all night, every night, for his father, she said.

Sitting quietly on the bed, her children wrapped around her, Ahmad told her story, a story of dreams forever unfilled, a story marked by unimaginable pain.

Both born in Pakistan, the couple had been married for seven years, since 2014, an arranged marriage, Ahmad said. Ahmad, who has lived in the United States for 13 years, brought Zahid to the country, too.

They shared three children, son Ayaan, 6, daughter Mishal, 3, and the baby, who, his grandmothers — both Zahid and Ahmad's mothers, who are mourning in the home — said, wakes every morning and pulls them by the finger to lead them down the steps to where his father always slept. "He thinks he's downstairs," they said.

Her husband, Ahmad said, would have turned 32 years old this week; his birthday was July 30, six days after he died on July 24.

He was a kind man, "very nice and helpful," Ahmad said. "He was always helping the kids. He was so happy to be a father." He enjoyed taking all three children to the park, playing with them in the backyard, going with them for walks.

And he had dreams for their futures, Ahmad said: "He wanted them to have good educations, to see them become doctors," she said.

Zahid's mother nods as Ahmad describes his devotion to his family, his excitement at plans to return to Pakistan this October to watch his only sister marry, plans that will never come to fruition now.

On Saturday, July 24, Justin B. Mendez, 22, of Brookhaven, was driving a red Nissan Maxima and crashed head-on into a gray Toyota Prius near the intersection of Montauk Highway and Quogue Street (east), police said. He was found to have a "quantity of marijuana" in the passenger side compartment of the vehicle, was seen speeding an estimated 55 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone — and, according to witness accounts, may have turned off his headlights when police began to follow him, although that has not yet been confirmed, police said.

Mendez died at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital a short time later, police said. Zahid, of Bay Shore, was the Uber driver, and three passengers in the Prius, Michael O. Farrell, 20, James P. Farrell, 25, and Ryan J. Kiess, 25, all from Manhassett, died at the scene, police said. A fourth passenger, Brianna M. Maglio, 24, of Garden City, remains hospitalized in critical condition, police said.

Investigators believe excessive speed may have been a factor in the crash, police said.

Describing that last night, Ahmad said her husband called her at 11 p.m. "He said, 'I just picked up a customer, and it's a 25-minute ride. I'll talk to you after 25 minutes.' He never made it," she said.

Her husband normally returned to their Bay Shore home between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., Ahmad said.

At 6 a.m., the doorbell rang, and her sister, who lives in the home with Ahmad and the children, answered.

When the bell rang, Ahmad said at first they thought her husband had just forgotten his key.

And then came the unthinkable words: "The highway police came and told us that he is no more. He died," she said.

Her face still, her voice soft, Ahmad spoke of the life she and her husband had dreamed of: "We had so many plans. He was going to buy us a house next year."

A home where her children could have the trampoline they ask for so often, she said.

Her husband, she said, had recently worked tirelessly to help her set up a beauty salon, Mishal Threading and Eyelash Studio in Brentwood. He worked on chairs, counters, decorations, signage. "He did everything," she said. "It was his dream to make me a salon."

Every morning he would drop her off and every night, he would pick her up, she said.

Sunday, August 1, one week after the crash that changed everything, would have been the grand opening celebration.

But now, according to her Muslim faith, Ahmad must remain covered in traditional garb and in mourning, praying, for four months; she cannot work and she cannot leave the house, she said.

She will be unable to work at the salon, or at all, while she grieves her husband.

Her husband had his own dreams, as well; he'd recently completed an IT course and once he was back home from his sister's wedding, he was planning to start a new job. The Uber driving gig, Ahmad said, was just to support his family; the position left him time to spend with the children he cherished, she said.

His children are lost without their father, Ahmad said.

Her daughter is the first to wake on Sunday, stirring slightly, then sitting up in her pink nightshirt.

"Mama, where is Daddy?" she asked. "Did he wake up? Let's go see him in the mosque.'"

At the funeral, held at the mosque, her daughter saw a bandage on her father's face, Ahmad explained. "She said, 'He didn't die; he's sleeping. God put a bandage on him, don't worry.'"

Her children all cry at night, Ahmad said. "They ask, 'Where is Father?' And they cry."

Whenever she speaks of her husband, her daughter tells her, 'He didn't die, don't say that,'" Ahmad said.

When her daughter sees her grandmother's anguished face, she asks: "Nana, what happened? Do you miss my Daddy?" Wrapping her arm around her mother, Mishal says, "I love you, Mama."

Her toddler cries constantly, all night — finally falling into an exhausted sleep at 7 a.m. — for the father who patiently changed his diapers. "He was so attached to his father," Ahmad said. "When he sees his picture now, he cries."

At the funeral, the baby strained in his grandfather's arms, trying to reach his father in the coffin, where Zahid lay, his body cleaned and wrapped in a white shroud, "before going to meet God," Ahmad said. Bright flowers surrounded his face, a Pakistani custom.

Her oldest boy said a prayer for his father before the coffin, wrapped in bright fabric, was lowered into the ground.

Services were held Wednesday for Farhan Zahid in Bay Shore.

Ahmad set up a GoFundMe page, "Help Farhan Zahid (Uber Driver) Family," that has raised more than $430,000 so far.

To those that have donated, Ahmad said, "Thank you so much for supporting me. I didn't realize that people are really so nice."

But while the generosity overwhelms, Ahmad said the reality is that, in their home, right now, only her sister works; her mother, who lives with them, does not. There is rent to pay, for both the house and the salon. And, she added, she will have three college educations to pay for, as well as clothing, food, toys — and a forever home.

"My children need a house to live in," Ahmad said.

Most of all, it is the looming future without her husband that seems dark and frightening, she said.

"The money can't bring my husband back," Ahmad said. "My kids lost their father, I lost my husband."

Looking at the years ahead, she added, "How can I tell people that my children have no father?"

So many plans were never realized, Ahmad said. The couple, so young, never went out alone together; they always went out with their children. Leafing through a bright blue wedding album, the photos inside depict a beautiful young woman and handsome young man — so striking friends have compared them to models, Ahmad said — their smiles shy, their futures still ahead.

Quietly, Ahmad places the album carefully back on a shelf.

They never took their children to Disney World, she said; there was no money for extras.

Ahmad, like the parents of the young men killed in the crash, has cried out for safety reform on the roadway, "so other people don't die there — like my husband died."

A heavy curtain of grief has hung over the home in the days since the crash, Ahmad said.

She cannot eat, although she tries — for her children. She puts something down and forgets, in moments, where it is.

"I feel like I'm dead inside," Ahmad said. "How can I describe my feelings? I can't sleep. I get up every few seconds because I think he's still here. His things are in the closet, his shoes, everything."

She cannot even bring herself to sleep downstairs, in the rooms she shared with her husband.

One small bit of comfort will come this week as a silver chain her husband was wearing is returned to her. Nina Kiess, Ryan's mother, was mistakenly given the chain after the crash by someone who thought it may have belonged to her son. She reached out to find Ahmad, to see if it may have been her husband's.

"It is his," Ahmad said Sunday.

If she could speak to him, just one more time, Ahmad said: "I would say, 'I don't know why you had to leave me so early. We had so many plans. How am I going to handle my three kids? How am I going to be a father and a mother? I don't know what to do in the future."

But, she said, her husband left her a beautiful gift, their three children, and for them, she has to try, has to force herself to face the future . . to go on.

"I saw him in my dream last night," Ahmad said. "In the dream, he woke up, and I said, 'Thank God, you didn't die! How was I going to live without you?' In the dream, he was happy, and he said, 'I came for you.' I thought it was real. But it was just a dream."