Hilary

The barrister asked for victim impact statements to be read out in court and I have to be honest, I’ve found little peace since her visit. She’s thrown the household into turmoil, all of us stuck in our own private hell as we’re forced to remember and think about how our lives have changed since that awful day.

I know that all of us have tried to pretend we don’t notice the gaping hole in our lives and how deeply we grieve the loss. How can any of us write on paper just how hard it’s been to carry on, since….

Are there any words that can do justice or convey the depth of emotions that all of us try to ignore?

I could write about how I drift around the house that used to be a home, or how I feel empty, lost and alone. Really, does it truly make a difference if I tell you that my life as I knew it is over and I have been robbed of all the things that should have been mine? What do you care if I never get to hold my son’s hand on the day of his wedding and tell him how proud I am of him?

Should my loss affect the sentencing of the man in the dock? And does he really give a damn about the consequences his actions have wrought, or is he weeping because he’s worried that what is said now will make his sentence harsher? He didn’t care enough to stop, or go back to the scene of the ‘accident’. All he cared about at the time was getting away and saving his own skin. There was no thought then to the person he knocked over and left for dead in the road. So why does it matter now how he impacted our lives?

It seems a waste of time for me to sit and write about the tears I have cried since that day, or the loss that hangs heavy over my home. Perhaps, my impact statement should be painted on a canvas. I would paint a picture of our house with a big black rain cloud engulfing it, seeping in every door jamb and window. Creeping through every room and winding its way around the occupants, stealing our tears to grow bigger and darker; feeding off our grief.

But I’m no artist.

The little things I have lost are the things I miss most. I miss being needed. There are no more football socks to wash, no more clothes to mend, no shirts to iron before he goes out for the evening with the lads. No more being Mum. I am no one…nothing….and no chance of being important again. I will never be Grandma. I will never take those pretty grandchildren to the park and I will never make them cakes and wipe the tears from their eyes as I once did for their father.

Sentence him to decades in prison for all I care. It won’t change anything. What use is revenge or justice if it makes no difference?  One careless afternoon, one more journey much like any other. Who could know it would have such a tragic outcome? What difference will it make now to throw him in prison? If he hasn’t already learned a lesson how will jail help? Impact statements means nothing. It matters not in the least. I’m not even sure if I want him to go to prison.

No court in the land can give me what I want, or what I feel I’m owed. When I got married and gave birth to my son I never imagined it would all be taken away in such a short space of time. I want it back…the future I envisioned and the life I thought was mine.

I want my son to have a mother; I want my husband to have a wife again. I want my life back. I don’t want to be dead anymore. It’s no consolation to me that he’ll go to jail for killing me. I don’t care if he’s sorry, or if he sees my face bloody and broken, smashing off his windscreen every night when he closes his eyes. The pain I felt when he knocked me down with his car is nothing compared to the pain I feel when I drift invisibly through my home, listening to my husband and son cry alone in their bedrooms as they write their impact statements.

I would suffer every minute of that pain again if I could wake up in hospital afterwards and hold those precious boys that I love so much close to me. If I could only kiss them and tell them I love them once more. That’s what he stole from me. The chance to tell them how much they mean to me and how full and happy they made my life; one last time to thank them and kiss them goodbye.

That’s my loss.

This is my impact statement.