“I used to be in shock. I used to be keeled over for days sick to my abdomen. It is fully indescribable,” Meredith wrote in an open letter about her husband’s tragic loss of life.
Meredith Gaudreau is opening up concerning the unimaginable ache she endured after her husband, Johnny Gaudreau, and his brother, Matthew, have been tragically killed final August whereas driving bikes of their New Jersey hometown.
In an emotional letter revealed Thursday, June 12, on the Gamers’ Tribune — practically one yr after their loss of life — Meredith mirrored on the second she discovered Johnny had handed. The Gaudreau brothers had been serving to put together for his or her youthful sister Katie’s wedding ceremony on the time of the tragedy.
“You kissed all of us goodbye and mentioned you’d see us later. And that was that,” she recalled. “Katie known as, and he or she mentioned one thing had occurred however she did not know what precisely. My dad drove me over to your mother and father’, and I used to be pondering the entire time about how I used to be going that will help you by way of no matter it could possibly be that had occurred to Matty. After which I walked up the entrance porch and discovered absolutely the worst had occurred and that it was each of you.”
“I used to be in shock. I used to be keeled over for days sick to my abdomen,” she wrote. “It is fully indescribable. The one one that can relate to me is my very own sister-in-law. I see her and my coronary heart breaks for her.”
Johnny was 31 and Matthew, 29, when a drunk driver, Sean Higgins, allegedly struck and killed them close to their hometown. Higgins now faces six expenses, together with aggravated manslaughter and reckless vehicular murder. He has pleaded not responsible.
Sister of Slain NHL Star Shares Shifting Tribute After Canceling Her Marriage ceremony Following Brothers’ Tragic Deaths
View Story
The occasion was postponed and is now deliberate for July 2025.
“To go from preparing for a lovely wedding ceremony all week together with your sister, to being in a funeral dwelling with Madeline attempting to determine all these items out — it simply harm a lot,” Meredith, who was pregnant with the couple’s third baby on the time, shared. “It was bizarre and it was terrible. I needed to go to the physician for our third child. The primary of my appointments the place you were not holding my hand.”
Meredith and Johnny shared daughter Noa, 2, and son Johnny Jr., who was simply 15 months outdated when his father died. Meredith later welcomed their third baby, son Carter, in April. Matthew and his spouse, Madeline, have been additionally anticipating their first baby on the time.
“I checked out Noa and child Johnny and I felt a ache that I hadn’t felt earlier than,” she wrote. “Our two infants who should develop up with out their dad, with out their wonderful uncle.”
Katie Gaudreau Remembers Heartbreaking Second She Discovered of Brothers’ Deaths Earlier than Marriage ceremony
View Story
She described the crushing weight of grief that adopted, writing that it acquired so dangerous, she may hardly rise up.
“I considered our child within me. I could not rise up,” she admitted. “I used to be awake and having nightmares. Considering of you in that second. Considering of Matty. It is simply the worst factor I may have ever imagined. And right away, I missed you greater than I knew was doable.”
Regardless of the sorrow, Meredith mentioned the help from the hockey world introduced her some consolation. Johnny’s former group, the Columbus Blue Jackets, honored him earlier than their first preseason recreation of the 2024–25 season, and gamers wore helmet stickers with doves and the numbers 13 (Johnny) and 21 (Matthew, who performed for Boston Faculty) on them. Patches have been additionally added to jerseys at first of the common season.
“The hockey world, the sports activities world, they confirmed up for us, too,” she wrote. “To see folks go from simply figuring out about ‘Johnny Hockey,’ to listening to about how wonderful of a father you have been, of an individual you have been? I do know that is what would have mattered to you.”
