By Lia Spencer
LIFE as we know it can change overnight.
On 22 August 1998, I went to sleep blissfully unaware of the tragedy I would wake to.
It began with a hair-raising scream from my 10-year-old sister Michaela. She had run down the hall from her room and was standing at my bedroom door, terrified of what was happening outside.
We went to the porch, where Dad stood at the open door, as my distraught mum cried out.
She was led inside by a police officer. He knew us well. He lived a block away, was the dad of my friend and coached my older sister Kelly’s volleyball team. His face was sunken and cold as he mustered up the courage to tell us what we hoped he wouldn’t. My sisters, twins Jill and Aryn, the oldest of five girls, were dead.
It was the end of our Canadian summer and they had been with friends for one last night out before Aryn moved back to study interior design at college and Jill started a business course near our home town.
It would have been the first entire year that the girls would have lived apart.
They had been inseparable from day one. Whether it be sneaking out of the house and into the neighbour’s when they were toddlers, or partnering when playing cards against their friends because they instinctively knew what each other’s moves would be. They had a unique, unbreakable bond.
The came onto this earth together, and they left it together.
On the way home in the early hours of the Sunday morning, with four in a three-seater ute, the vehicle veered off a bend and rolled.
Their friends, travelling in another vehicle, saw the wreckage and called the ambulance. Jill was found under the vehicle, and Aryn was found several feet from it.
They were killed instantly, and their friend, a popular football player, died shortly after. Alcohol and fatigue were determined to be factors in the accident, and no-one was wearing seatbelts.
Our hearts were ripped to shreds. Our small town stood still. With a population of 1200 people, everyone knew everyone. Jill and Aryn were only a year out of high school. They loved their sports, friends and worked as lifeguards at the local swimming pool.
Immediately following the accident, the pool was closed and school, which was due to start that week, was postponed to give the town time to grieve.
We had a revolving front door as relatives flew in from all over the country and neighbours and friends came to hug us and cry, to drop off food or to add to the delivery of flowers that transformed our family home.
My friends visited and tried to comfort me and while they provided me with some distraction, it couldn’t fix the excruciating pain I had when they left. At only 12 years old, I was dealing with something well beyond my years.
I had lost my role models. Because there was a six-year age gap between us, we never had a sibling rivalry. In fact they never had this with Kelly, who was only two years their junior.
They were constantly looking out for us, taking us under their wing.
We grew up performing dance videos in my parents’ basement, or filming our comedic renditions of classic fairy tales. We made homemade obstacle courses in the backyard, had toboggan races on nearby snow hills, and went skiidooing and skiing in the winter and camping and swimming in the summer.
As we got older, they let me borrow their CDs and magazines, and as I struggled with leaving my childhood and entering my teens, they gave me advice on friends and boys.
I remember the way they loved me, and protected me, and never, not once, did I think I would have to live a day without them. I never thought I would have to stand in the church we attended every Sunday, and then at the cemetery, to say our final goodbyes.
Following the whirlwind week, our relatives travelled back to their homes, the gifted flowers lost their leaves and school began. But the pain didn’t go away. As everyone else carried on, we were learning how to live a life that seemed directionless and meaningless. What does it mean? Why are we here? Why them?
We ached. Every part of us ached. Our minds. Our bodies. It was all consuming.
I remember laying in my bed, crying until I felt there was no more tears left to give, wondering how I would ever move on. I remember watching my distressed mum sob as she vacuumed their rooms and packed up their things. I watched my strong, masculine dad break down at their gravesite. My bubbly little sister couldn’t sleep on her own anymore. My older sister had to conquer her last year of high school without her older sisters’ support.
We struggled through the firsts. The first birthdays, Christmas, Easter without them.
Time doesn’t heal a broken heart, instead, time brings with it new focuses, or new goals. Mum and dad were beyond courageous. They had gone through something no parent should have to go through.
But somehow they returned to work, ran errands and tried to keep our lives as normal as possible while dealing with their own crippling grief. They continued to be our number one fans in all we did and wanted to do. We cried often, but tried to embrace the memories we had.
Over the years, the pain would return during momentous occasions, like at a wedding or the arrival of a new baby, when we thought about how much Jill and Aryn were missing out on.
But sometimes it would creep up unexpectedly, during a car ride when a familiar song played on the radio or at the cinemas when a tear-jerker hit too close to home. Or sometimes, in the middle of the day, for no good reason, when thinking about how great it would be if they were sitting next to us, having a cuppa.
It’s now been 18 years since they left me. I’ve lived most of my life without them. But they are forever etched in my memories and part of who I am.
I speak about them often with my three-year-old daughter. She kisses their pictures and waves to them in the clouds. I have two small tattoos in their memory. There’s not a single day that goes by that they don’t cross my mind.
If I could turn back the clock for just one day and tell them not to get in that car, or to call mum and dad for a ride, as they had told them time and time again. If I could have one more day, maybe life would be different now.
Life is precious. Don’t take it, or the people in it, for granted. Make smart choices. Get home alive.
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