On the 20th of January
1981:
Brendan
Fevola was born.
Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th
U.S. President.
American hostages were released from Iran
after 444 days captive.
These events, however, had no
importance to Bronwyn Reid that day. For that day, she received the gut-wrenchingly
devastating news that no-one with a family should ever have to hear.
Her big brother had been involved
in a car accident. Her father had been driving a car containing her brothers
Phillip & Jeffery and a Canadian exchange student on a wet road. The top of
the car was violently torn off like aluminium when the vehicle toppled over. 22
year old Jeffery had died of internal injuries on the way to Rockhampton.
She describes her brother with a
great deal of thought, and an enormous amount of respect. “He was a very
protective big brother,” says Bronwyn, “because when we were in Grade 1 and
Grade 2, we both had to go to boarding school because there was no bus. So we
boarded at the Catholic Convent in Clermont, and I was incredibly homesick – so
I used to hang around him all the time. He
always seemed to just know everything.”
Bronwyn reflects that the impact
of losing her brother was ‘quite strange’ because he wasn’t someone that she
saw every day at that point in her life. She had moved to Brisbane to work in a
stock trading office, while her two brothers had stayed on their cattle
property with their parents, Heather and Laurie.
“Jeffery was a unique character.
In today’s terms he probably would have been diagnosed as a dyslexic or
Asperger’s... He had no behaviour problems, but he was very intense. Highly
mathematical; like, engineering - he was always inventing little machines and
things like that.”
In retrospect, she says that it
took her a couple of years to unwrap herself a heavy blanket of denial and come
to terms with the loss of her big brother in a rather poignant way – at
Phillip’s wedding in 1988. It is obviously still difficult to talk about for
Bronwyn, however it is clear that she has come to terms with her loss through
the years. As she articulates her story, the ache in her voice is evident and
her eyes are never strictly forwards – as though she is looking away from the
topic of conversation.
“Our parents were very, very
careful to not let the fact that Jeffery was no longer there affect their
relationship with us,” says Bronwyn – referring to herself and Phillip. She
states very openly that losing a son very nearly destroyed her parents’
marriage. I inquire as to whether her parents opened up more about the loss of
their son as Phillip and Bronwyn got older, and the family came to terms with
it. She replies with a simple, “No. They spoke of it very rarely”.
As for the impact upon the
small-town community they lived in – she is lost for words as to how to explain
it, and can only describe it as horrendous. The sympathy and grievance of the
community is especially displayed through the resoluteness of a large number of
the funeral guests to get to the funeral. Due to heavy rainfall, a number of
roads were cut off totally, “The creek was flooded and nobody could get across
to get into town. So Queensland Rail actually organised a train and a carriage
across the river to pick everyone up to go across to the funeral. Half of the
cars going down to the cemetery got bogged” she recalls fondly. I can tell that
Bronwyn was, and still is, touched by this show of selfless compassion from a tight-knit
community, the majority of whom she had never met.
She doesn’t remember the
atmosphere of Jeffery’s funeral, the entire day is simply a blank in her memory
- perhaps indicative of a painful event being censored by her mind.
Bronwyn adds as an afterthought
that the Canadian exchange student left not long after the accident, and was
replaced by a now very close family friend by the name of Sikko from the
Netherlands. “He played a very, very big part in helping my Father deal with
what was going on. That’s probably the reason why Dad is still so close with
Sikko. Dad probably opened up more to
Sikko than to any of us.”
That sentence was probably the
most heart-wrenching part of my speaking to Bronwyn. Her usually steady tone
reduces to a hushed level, and her pauses are placed in such a way that I am
hesitant as to whether or not I ought to carry on with the discussion. I allow
the conversation to fall in to a haunting lull, letting Bronwyn gather her
thoughts
As for now, Bronwyn still suffers
a terrible sense of loss. “You don’t think of it every day any more, but it’s
obviously still there, and I guess the main way it is still there is my niece.
I see a part of Jeffery in her looks. I can definitely see part of Jeffery in
Zane.”
The niece she refers to is 32
year old Angelique, Jeffery’s only daughter before his death – Zane is her
eldest son of four children at 11 years old, along with 7 year old Kayden, 5
year old Leilani, and 2 year old Alamia.
The loss of her brother is an
ongoing struggle that Bronwyn will have to face for the remainder of her life.
She will never fully recover, and although she is strong while I talk to her,
it is a burden she will carry forever. Her bright-eyed nephew Zane is a
constant reminder of Jeffery, a living acknowledgment of Bronwyn’s brother – an
intellectual young man with a zest for life.
From left to right: Stuart Poole
(Canadian student), Jeffery and Jennifer with their daughter Angelique,
Heather, Laurie, Phillip.
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