Our sister
Dianne died in her sleep suddenly and unexpectedly in March
1989 aged 32. Despite having suffered from severe epilepsy for
most of her life, our parents had always been reassured that
the epilepsy in itself was not life threatening. Following subsequent
investigations, we were told by the Procurator Fiscal that Dianne
had suffered the adult equivalent of a cot death, and that such
deaths were more frequently seen in people with epilepsy. We
were shocked and confused, and believed that the seizures, the
medication and the many injuries Dianne suffered had finally
taken their toll.
Only one person kept us going through the devastation of Dianne’s
death - Colette, Dianne’s only daughter, then aged 8.
Since her birth she had been the much adored centre of our family,
and we became Colette’s parents, continuing to love and
cherish her as she so deserved and as her mother would have
wished.
In 1991, Colette began to suffer from seizures. We were terrified
that we could lose her. However, that terror receded when we
were told that we need not return to the hospital, that she
had a benign seizure condition unlike her mother’s epilepsy,
and that the seizures would stop as she grew up. Colette suffered
only 4-6 seizures a year, always on awakening. She took a small
amount of medication prescribed by her GP. Colette’s seizures
caused her little inconvenience, and she continued to be the
happy, healthy and loving girl she always was.
Yet on 11 April 1998, Colette died in her sleep. It is impossible
to describe the pain of losing her, a pain that will be with
us forever. From that day, to paraphrase CS Lewis, her absence
has been like the sky, covering everything.
Colette’s death was the subject of a lengthy and complex
Fatal Accident Inquiry which reported in September 2002. The
details of the Inquiry are presented elsewhere on this website.
As a family, we have been forced to spend so much time and energy
in the investigation of Colette’s death and of how it
might have been prevented that it has often been difficult to
find space and words to speak of her life, and how precious
it was to us. We could not have lost so much had we not been
blessed so much by her presence in the first place. So below,
we offer Tricia’s words, however imperfect, to try amidst
the darkness to remember all of those blessings:
Colette
| What words could we possibly find to write in memory
of our beloved daughter, Colette? |
| We could describe her huge brown eyes, which shone
from the day of her birth, but we could never convey the
sparkle within them. |
| We could tell you of her wide engaging smile, that
radiated from her face every day of her short life, in good
times and in bad, but we could never describe the light
that her smile brought to us. |
| We could talk of her energy, her laughter, of the
‘buzz’ in our home when Colette was here. But
we can never now show you how she lit up a room. |
| We could tell of her mischief, of how she teased us,
but we couldn’t illustrate how warm and loved her
gentle teasing made us feel. |
| We could share with you how she gave us a reason for
living after the death of her mother and our sister, Dianne,
but we could not begin to describe how proud we were of
our 8 year old Colette as she bravely led the mourners at
her mother’s funeral. We could tell of her courage
in facing life without Dianne, and in facing the onset of
her own seizures. |
| We could talk of her generous spirit, which always
accepted others without judgement. But that would never
reveal how she stood out in people’s eyes as a fine
and decent young woman. |
| We could talk of her service to others as a St Andrew’s
First Aider, but could not capture her excitement and sense
of achievement when a First Aid duty went well and she recounted
the incidents to us. |
| We could try to describe her shriek of excitement
on hearing of the birth of her long awaited ‘brother’,
Caoimhín, in February 1998, but we could not come
close to describing her loving gaze and his total relaxation
as she held him closely. |
| We could tell you of the impact she had on other people,
on her family, friends, co-workers; on the hundreds who
attended her funeral, and wrote to us fondly of the love
which she exuded. We could talk of the pain and the horror
of losing her, but these are the features of her death,
not her life. |
| We could perhaps just tell you of the countless times
we stood watching proudly from the window as Colette walked
confidently to or from our home, her dark shiny hair flowing
in the wind, but we would not be able to describe how blessed
we were in having her. |
| We could try to tell you all of this, and even if
we had the eloquence of poets or of angels, we could never
find the right words to show how much love and joy and laughter
Colette brought to us. She was a gift from God, she was
our life, and we love her. |
| God Bless you sweetheart, until we are together again.
|
Patricia and Jeanette
|
