by Jane Plume
Sadly, I couldn’t attend the ceremony as I couldn’t get the day off, having already taken the two weeks following the accident, but I managed to get to the reception in the evening. Everyone looked wonderful and there was lots of laughter and smiles, but also a few tears. In the midst of the celebrations, it would suddenly come up and hit us again that Gina wasn’t there, or I would find myself absent-mindedly looking round the pub for her, then suddenly remember I would never see that smiling face again.
Shaun still had hospital appointments for regular check-ups and I would accompany him so that he didn’t have to go alone. The doctors were pleased with how he was doing and the most recent scan showed that the cancer had still not advanced any further so, every time, as we sat in the car on the way back from the hospital, I said a silent prayer: ‘Please don’t put this little family through any more.’
My sister Ann had been a huge support to me when Gina had died, despite being a twenty-four-hour carer for her husband Brian. I knew that if I knocked on the door she would make me a cuppa and listen as I talked or hold my hand as I cried. Now, as I still struggled to deal with my grief for Gina, I got a phone call to say that Brian had been taken into hospital. My sister and her family were beside themselves with worry.
Then the unthinkable happened. Brian passed away, just six weeks after Gina had been taken. I felt I needed to be strong again, this time for my sister, and my niece and nephews – but it turned out to be my big sister who was the strong one. Although crushed by her own loss and grief, she continued to be there for me whenever I needed her.
‘It’s what I need to do,’ she said, one day. ‘I’m your big sister, remember.’
In truth, we were there for each other.
• • •
After the horror of the past few weeks, life didn’t hold much brightness. Even Christmas, by then just a few weeks away, couldn’t lift my spirits. I missed Gina so much. No more planning Christmas shopping trips where we would spend too much money, giggling all the time and picking out presents for each other’s children as well as our own. The excitement seemed to have died with Gina. I knew that it would be unfair on my kids to not at least try to make Christmas special for them though, and I encouraged Shaun to do the same for Lewis and Ashton – but I knew that it would not be easy for any of us. Gina had left a huge gap in all our lives that no amount of gifts would fill. I invited Shaun to join me and my family for Christmas day but he refused, saying he wanted it to just be him and his boys at home, which I understood completely.
Shaun battled on bravely, but he struggled with his grief, and every time he bought the boys a gift or some clothes he would ask himself, ‘What would Gina think?’ and, ‘What would she have chosen?’
Gina and I had always agreed on a set amount of around £30 to spend on each other’s children for Christmas and birthdays, and I didn’t see why I should do anything different this year. The only problem was that Gina wasn’t there to shop with me, telling me what Lewis and Ashton had on their Christmas lists.
At just five, Ashton got as excited as any other child of that age does. As far as he was concerned, Santa was coming and he was looking forward to that. I was glad – a little boy should be excited at this special time of year, whatever awful blows the year has brought him. His age provided an innocence that I envied.
It was harder for Lewis. He was older, so part of the magic of Christmas was already gone for him, and knowing his mum wasn’t going to be there, for the first time ever, made it especially hard for him. In the conversations I had with Lewis in the run up to the day, I encouraged him to enjoy Christmas as much as he could, telling him that’s what his mum would have wanted, words I also repeated to Shaun. It was easy to say, but I was well aware it wouldn’t be that easy in practice.
Somehow, we got through Christmas – and the New Year. To me, New Year’s Eve had always been a very emotional time. My own mum and dad had always made a big thing about it and, since losing them, I had always felt a little lost around New Year. I didn’t expect this one to be any different and it wasn’t, apart from the fact that people would now say, ‘Gina died last year.’ It somehow felt wrong saying that when, in fact, so little time had passed.
After Christmas, the boys went back to school and appeared to be doing well. Shaun turned out to be an excellent homemaker: the boys were clean and smart, the house spotless and there was always a hot meal on the table in the evening. Naturally, they had their bad days – I would have been worried if they hadn’t – but on the whole they were doing incredibly well. I marvelled at the way they were all coping.
One day in January, Shaun sent me a text while I was at work asking him to call me as soon as I could. As always that set my alarm bells ringing, worrying if he was all right. The first moment I had to myself I called his number and frantically asked what was wrong.
‘It’s okay, don’t panic, everything is fine,’ he reassured me.
He went on to explain that a local charity, Wishes 4 Kids, had been in touch. It was a charity that usually helped children who had a life-limiting illness to fulfil a wish, but somehow they had heard about Lewis and Ashton’s plight of losing their mum, and their dad being terminally ill, and wanted to grant them a wish. They had offered to send Shaun and the boys to Disneyland Paris for a long weekend, all expenses paid. Shaun was really touched and knew the boys would love it, so he was keen to go, but they told him that because of his condition he would have to take another adult, who would be classed as his ‘carer’. He had asked the boys who they would like to go with them and they had said Auntie Emma or Auntie Jane. Shaun knew that I would feel awful about going to Disneyland without my own children, so he had asked Emma if she would accompany him, but she couldn’t make it due to prior commitments, so that left me.
‘That sounds lovely,’ I told him. ‘But I will need to think about it and talk to the kids, so I’ll call you later.’
Marco and Millie were very grown up about it and told me that I should go, saying Lewis and Ashton deserved it. And Anni-Mae was due to be away at her dad’s house that weekend so it wasn’t a problem. I called Shaun that evening and told him that I would love to come with them. The charity called me the following day to confirm everything and just a few days later we were away.
My brother Mick came to stay with the kids and I felt sad and guilty saying goodbye to them, but guilt turned to pride when they told me, ‘Just go. We will be fine, have fun!’
The charity had thought of everything. We had a car to the airport, transport laid on in Paris and a beautiful hotel. Ashton and Lewis were each given a card to hang around their neck, to let everyone who worked at the park know they were special so they didn’t have to wait in queues for the rides. When there were any Disney characters around they made a beeline for the boys for a cuddle and a photograph, so they didn’t have to wait to meet their favourite characters. Shaun had brought the boys autograph books and the characters all signed their name in it. It was particularly good for Ashton because, at five, he was at that age when he may have suspected that the person in front of him wasn’t Buzz Lightyear, just someone dressed up, but at the same time he allowed himself to think that there was the chance that it might be Buzz Lightyear. Being older, Lewis was more interested in the rides, but the Disney side, the magical side, was still there for Ashton. He loved it and it gave us all some shared memories. I spent most of the trip behind the camera taking pictures of Shaun and the boys.
There were a number of times walking round the park I found that I was smiling to myself, remembering Gina – and I wasn’t the only one.
On one evening, when we were on our way to eat, we saw a ‘wishing well’ style attraction, which consisted of a fake alligator in a pool of water, where you threw pennies in and made a wish. On our previous visit, Gina had commented on how lifelike it looked, but threw her penny in all the same – which activated the alligator to move and snap its jaws. Gina had screamed out loud, and jumped back with such force she fell s
traight on her bottom!
Being the great friend that I was, of course, I couldn’t help her to her feet – because I was too busy laughing. In fact, we were all in stitches and she was soon giggling along with us, but it scared Marco, Millie and Lewis enough that they refused to throw their own pennies in.
On our return to the park we stumbled across the alligator, still in the same place, and even Lewis laughed. ‘I remember that scaring Mum,’ he said, with a half smile on his face. I couldn’t believe that he could remember something that happened when he was so young.
Lots had changed since we had last been at the park a few years earlier, together as two families, but there were many things that hadn’t changed at all and being back in the same place helped to make the memories flow easily.
And the memories were good, every single one of them.
• • •
Lewis’s twelfth birthday was in February and Shaun asked him what he would like. I felt really proud of him when he said that what he would like to do was to go on holiday with his dad and Ashton so that he had a recent holiday to remember. Shaun booked a break in Tenerife for the three of them and Dick, a close family friend. During the week they were away I worried about the three of them non-stop, but I spoke to them on the telephone a couple of times and had regular texts from Shaun, so I knew they were well and having a great time. I was just pleased they could enjoy some quality time together.
Soon after their holiday Wishes 4 Kids held their annual fun day at Donington Park racetrack. The kids were allowed to choose to have a spin in ten of the many high-powered sports cars there. They had a go in everything from a Ferrari to an Ariel Atom, and Shaun and I got to have a go in a couple of them too. I was really pleased to be able to share these sorts of days with them, creating more memories for the boys to treasure forever.
• • •
One afternoon, not long after the event at the racetrack, I had just arrived home from work and sunk down into the sofa with a cup of tea, grabbing five minutes to myself before the school run, when my mobile buzzed at the side of me. It was Shaun.
‘Trust you to ring just as I put my feet up,’ I answered, laughing.
‘Oh, sorry,’ he said, in a flat tone.
‘What’s wrong? I asked. I knew that for Shaun to not come back with some witty comment, something must be on his mind.
‘I have to choose the words for Gina’s headstone,’ he replied, with a catch in his voice. He knew the obvious – her name, date of birth, date of death, mum, wife – but he wanted a sentence that would be a fitting tribute. After much discussion I suggested ‘Always remembered with a smile’. As I said to him, when you thought of Gina you couldn’t help but smile, and every time you remembered her face, you always saw her big beautiful smile. Shaun was really pleased with that. I was just glad to have been of some help, and I did think it was very fitting.
But the final obstacle in our acceptance of Gina’s death was still to come. The inquest into her death had been scheduled for mid-June 2011, and although we all knew it was going to be tough, it was something we needed to get through together, to find out the truth.
Even so, as the date got closer many of us were getting quite het up about it. No one, including Shaun, really talked about how we felt but everyone’s patience was a little short, and I for one was quite irritable. Knowing only the sketchy details of the accident that I did, I had found myself having nightmares, imagining Gina trapped in the car with chaos surrounding her, shouting out for Shaun and her boys. Even though I had been told that her death would have been instantaneous, I couldn’t stop thinking that she had been alone without any of her loved ones around her when she died. I never discussed it with anyone but I couldn’t shake the images from my mind.
On the day of the inquest, I sat in the hearing room between Lisa and Shaun’s other sister-in-law Jenny, holding a hand in each of mine. There were other members of Gina’s family and close friends there too, along with representatives of the other driver. The atmosphere was extremely tense.
The court heard that the other driver’s speedometer was frozen on 79 mph, nearly 20 mph over the speed limit, and that he had been swerving all over the road. As he came over the brow of a hill his car became airborne and landed in front of Gina, who was driving in the other direction, like ‘something dropping from the sky’. There was nothing she could have done to avoid a collision; the impact would have been immediate.
Then there were the medical experts who detailed the injuries Gina had sustained. Horrific as it was to listen to, they did state on a number of occasions that Gina would not have been aware of her injuries. You would expect that information to bring some comfort, but given everything else we heard, for me and others that I spoke to, it did nothing to help the nightmares.
It was incredibly difficult to hear all the minute details of the events of that day, and to listen as the witnesses gave their accounts of what had happened. I had already read the witness statements as Shaun had shown me his copy, but to hear it out loud was a different matter altogether.
Mostly, I felt so incredibly angry. No matter what anyone said or what verdict was given, this was all wrong, so very wrong! I can’t speak for others, but for me it made me think ‘what if’ over and over again. Gina had done nothing wrong, just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. If only she had hit the snooze button on her alarm clock that morning; if only she had left something at home and had to turn back to get it; if only…
Mairin Casey, the coroner, said: ‘This is a situation, tragically, where one driver was driving far too quickly for the topography of the road. He lost control in an attempt to negotiate a left-hand bend and in so doing collided with Mrs Hibberd, who was driving quite normally in the opposite direction.’
At last they were ready to deliver the verdict: ‘unlawful killing’. The other driver had been entirely to blame and Gina could have done nothing to prevent it. A whispered ‘yes’ resounded from people who were there for Gina. But it was a muted response. Yes, a verdict had been given, but did it make it any better? No! The only thing that could make any of this better was to have Gina back, and that wasn’t going to happen.
About this time, I started to notice some changes in Shaun. Ever since he’d been diagnosed, I had occasionally seen him place a protective hand over his chest. I would ask if he was in pain and he would instantly snap back ‘I’m fine’ or ‘It just aches a little.’
In the summer of 2011, however, I noticed it was getting more frequent and I could see in his expression that he was experiencing pain, not just an ache. He didn’t want to expand on how he felt, though, and I didn’t want to push him – knowing Shaun that would only make him clam up further. He was still having regular appointments at the hospital and I was confident they would be keeping a close eye on him.
For now all I could do was watch.
• • •
As the anniversary of Gina’s death approached, mixed emotions surfaced all over again. In some ways it felt like only yesterday, yet at moments it seemed like forever since I heard her voice, gave her a hug or saw that beautiful smile.
On the actual day, we met up with family and friends for a drink to celebrate her life. I admit initially I had felt it was wrong to be getting together in the pub. Earlier in the day, I had visited the cemetery, alone, where I found that numerous bunches of flowers had been placed on the grave, including a huge bouquet from Shaun and the boys with a little card from each of the three of them saying how much they loved and missed her. I placed my flowers among the others, together with a picture Anni-Mae had drawn for her Auntie Gina, and sat there for a while lost in my own thoughts, not really sure whether to attend later that evening or not.
In the end, I was glad that I decided to go. It was the sort of evening that Gina would have loved. The pub was once again packed and it was lovely to hear everyone telling their own little stories and memories of Gina. There were lots of tears that evening but also lots of smiles.
‘She would be so proud of you and of them,’ I said, nodding over to the boys.
He smiled then. ‘I sure hope so.’
‘I know so,’ I insisted. Once again, I looked over at Lewis and Ashton, who were both talking easily with everyone in the room.
As the evening got later, Ashton got tired so he climbed on to my knee and snuggled his head into my shoulder. I hugged him close and carried on chatting with him curled in my lap. Sally, one of Shaun’s good friends, spotted the two of us curled up together and came over.
‘They are lucky to have you,’ she said, nodding gently towards Ashton’s sleepy head.
‘They will always have me,’ I replied.
• • •
That autumn, Shaun’s health started to deteriorate. He wasn’t breathless, but he was getting increasingly tired and struggled with pain in his left side. We would be sitting talking and he would suddenly gasp, clutching his side, then it would pass and he would carry on chatting.
Concerned, his consultant arranged a scan shortly before Christmas, and I went with him to get the results. We both sat almost silent in the waiting room. I was nervous, chewing my nails, waiting for Shaun’s name to be called. I couldn’t help thinking, ‘What if it is bad news? How would Shaun take it? What about the boys?’
When they finally called his name I squeezed his hand in reassurance. It was the only comfort I could offer. I wanted to say, ‘Don’t worry, everything will be fine,’ but it wouldn’t mean a thing because I didn’t believe it any more than he did.
