From tragedy emerges a legacy of life

Suicide awareness activist Elber Twomey tells Ruadhán Jones how faith helped her to cope with grief

We don’t know how we will react to extreme situations until they happen. Most would be happy never to experience violence or death or personal tragedy. On July 6, 2012, Elber Twomey of Meelin, Co. Cork had to face all three. On that day, she lost her husband, Con, 39, her son Oisín, 16 months and her unborn baby daughter, Elber Marie, also fondly remembered as ‘Our Little Lady’.

Elber’s family were killed when a suicidal driver, Marek Wojciechowski, 26, drove into their car during a family holiday in Devon. Marek was being pursued by a police officer when he swerved across the road, hitting the Twomey’s car.

The experience has left a lasting mark on Elber, inspiring her efforts to turn her family’s deaths into a legacy of life through campaigns for suicide awareness training for Gardaí, among other things. But it also left her with a grief which, she says, you never overcome – for that, the only remedies are faith, forgiveness and time.

Early life

Elber grew up in the village of Meelin, Co. Cork – a small but strong community, as Elber describes it. She and her brother and sister were raised in a devoutly Catholic family, typical of the time.

“Yeah, I mean – as a family we used to say the rosary at night and we would go to Mass at the weekend,” she explains. “It was just part of the family. We’d say our prayers in the car as a family when we were going to school in the morning. I’m sure many families around the time were the same.”

Elber continued practicing her faith through her college years, though she says she became somewhat complacent. She recalls however that her habit of going to confession regularly stayed with her through it all.

“I don’t think I ever fell away from it, but I became a bit careless,” she says. “I remember going – we’d make sure to go to confession before going on family holidays and it stuck with me. I remember being in college and going to a church in Limerick before I went on holidays.

“There was a bell, you had to ring the bell to receive confession and I remember ringing the bell. I’m sure I interrupted his lunch and didn’t have a whole lot to say to him! It was something that was always important.”

Family

After college, Elber became a teacher and later married Connie Twomey, who she remembers as a talented hurler and friend to many in the communities of Meelin and Rockchapel. They were regular Mass-goers she explains, even on holidays: “Myself and Connie were in Australia for 12 months and it didn’t matter what hour of the night we came in on a Saturday, we always went to Mass on the Sunday morning. It was something that was very important to both us.”

On 25 February 2011, the couple had their first baby, a boy they called Oisín. Con and Elber quickly fell in love with “the boss of their home” as they called him and she felt blessed to be a mother. Oisín was little more than a year old when Elber became pregnant with Elber Marie, their ‘Little Lady’.

Elber’s family had a tradition of going to Torquay when she was a child, taking the car and travelling around. In July 2012, now with a family of her own, she and Connie decided to holiday there themselves. After six happy days, the seventh was one of tragedy.

On the way back from a visit to the pool, their car was struck by a suicidal driver who was being pursued by Devon police. The crash left Elber and Con fighting for their lives, while Elber Marie and Oisín both died as a result of their injuries.

Tragedy

In August, Elber and Con were airlifted to Cork University Hospital (CUH), where family and friends kept a semi-constant vigil at their bedside. Elber began to recover slowly from her injuries and was able to leave hospital, but spent any day she could by Con’s bedside.

While her family’s faith sustained them, initially Elber found it hard to turn to God.

“Oh my God, I was raging at him – absolutely raging,” she says. “And I think I was entitled to be. But if you like, I was quite hypocritical in my anger. Because I was probably saying the rosary and divine mercy and what not at Connie’s bedside, obviously silently.

“But yet I didn’t go to Mass for about 3 months after the crash, which I suppose was hypocritical of me. I remember saying to my dad shortly before Con left, if God takes Connie, I doubt I’ll ever again go to Mass. My dad said, you know, I wouldn’t blame you. I never actually gave up the Lord – when I was angry with Him I gave up Mass, but I didn’t give up praying and hoping.”

Connie passed away in May 2013, meaning that Elber was the only one to survive the crash.

Forgiveness

One of the hardest aspects, among many, of the deaths of her family was trying to forgive Marek, the suicidal driver who killed them. Marek had been reported to police in Devon as a missing person and a suicide note was found at his home. He deliberately swerved across lanes and hit the Twomey’s car at high speeds, prompted, Elber later argued, by the pursuit of a police vehicle.

When a local priest suggested that she needed to forgive Marek, Elber was initially enraged.

“One of the biggest things for me personally was when Fr Michael called to pay homage the September after the crash. He talked about faith and forgiveness and mentioned me forgiving Marek for what he had done. And I was raging like, I just thought how dare you say something like that to me, this man is after wiping out my family,” she says.

It took some time before Elber was ready to forgive him. But ultimately she recognised that “the biggest gift I got from the man above was the grace to forgive Marek and when I started lighting a candle for him because I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t get that grace. It wasn’t as if it was going to bring Connie and Oisín and the little lady back.

“It would have destroyed me and I can’t imagine what it would have done to my own – we’ll say my parents, if I was going to harbour this anger and resentment and blame for the rest of my life. That I forgave him, even though what he did wasn’t right – and it certainly wasn’t and it never will be – it’s allowed me to bring a bit of good out of things, thanks be to God,” she says.

Activism

Elber hopes that the ultimate result of her family’s tragedy will be a greater respect for life. Having recovered from her injuries, she started organising a yearly memorial day for her husband and children. Involving walks and bike runs and other activities, the aim was to raise money for charity and commemorating the lives of her family.

“We set up the Twomey family memorial in honour Connie and Oisín and the Little Lady and we raised over €160-170 thousand for particular charities,” she explains. “We didn’t fundraise anything this year but we gave people a purpose you know to do a walk or a cycle during a week in June. It was lovely, people from across 19 regions of Ireland registered and took part. Six or seven countries. It was just beautiful.”

The main focus of Elber’s activism has been on suicide awareness – in particular, she argues for the introduction of mandatory suicide awareness training and how to apprehend suicidal drivers for Gardaí and police in the UK and Ireland.

“The big thing to me is – obviously Marek was in a bad place that day when the police were notified that he was missing,” she says. “He had left a suicide note and I think the way it was – when he was spotted, and the lights were turned on and the siren was at him – I do think it pushed him over the edge.

“I wouldn’t blame the police officer involved because that was all the training he had at the time. But I would have campaigned that the Gardaí here would have suicide training. That they would handle these poor souls with care. I know myself that if I’m out driving and a siren comes on, I become nervous and you know thank God that I’m not in a bad place, mentally or emotionally. Not a mind if you were in a fragile place what it would do to you.”

Life is precious

Elber’s belief is that saving even one life makes everything she is doing worthwhile: “You look at the knock-on effect – you see it with Connie’s friends and my own family, the huge impact our crash had on everybody here, not to mention the emergency services and all those people. You know, it has a huge impact on people. And if one life could be saved imagine the sorrow that could be saved, you know.”

One aspect of Elber’s activism is giving talks and presentations to different communities, in particular police forces. She recalls a story a police officer in Wales told her after a talk.

“It was lovely, there was a police officer who came up to me afterwards. He told me that he was called to a similar tragic situation where a dad had been notified as missing and had left a note and had gone off in the car. He thought of us and he thought of what I had said a couple of years before. He said, he didn’t turn on the siren, he followed him at a safe distance until they were back up then and they were able to bring it to a safe conclusion. And the man is fine thank God.

“You know, who knows –there’s nothing to say that if the officer had signalled for him to pull over that the man wouldn’t have done what Marek did, do you know what I mean? But the fact that he handled it out of fear that a similar tragedy could have happened to that of ours. Please God, it’s about awareness.”

Faith

Though Elber’s activism has helped her to give meaning to the loss of her family, it has not been able to take the grief away from her. The lives and deaths of her husband and children are permanently etched into her own life – she carries them with her to this day.

“I don’t think you overcome it to be honest with you. I suppose you get more used to living without but – people are fantastic, but saying d’you know to move on or whatever, but you don’t. You bring them with you, you get more used to living without them. They’re obviously part of every day of my life, since the year 2000 for Connie and for Oisín since 2011.”

Every anniversary is a difficult reminder, of what she had and what she then lost. Though it didn’t at first, faith and prayer now play a vital role in sustaining her during difficult moments.

“I suppose, there was always going to be a case of either I give faith up completely or I believe in it more. I do think the fact that you have nearest and dearest in Heaven – I want to get there myself someday, please God – but it makes it all the more… there’s a realism on it, do you know what I mean, that we’re all only passing through,” she says.

Life lesson

It is near impossible to go through a tragedy such as Elber’s without your perspective on life altering. For Elber, it was a case of learning to cherish each day, each moment within that day, and leave the rest to God. When I ask Elber if she has advice for anyone who found themselves in her position, she says “to live one day at a time”.

“Don’t look at a big map,” Elber says. “Like, my biggest concern when I was expecting our little lady was what was I going to do – you know, looking forward, this was July and the little lady was due on the first of November. My biggest concern was how was Oisín going to manage without his mummy and daddy to put him to bed that night, while I’d be in labour.

“You can worry about all these things in the world that will never actually materialise. I’d say live one day at a time, look out for one another, take any bit of help. Friends, family, loads of people want to help, talk, talk, talk I would say. If you’re having a concern, do talk to somebody because most people are looking to help in any way they can. Sometimes you may prefer to talk to a complete stranger. I always think a problem shared is without a doubt a problem halved.”

As a final word, Elber quotes St Padre Pio: “Pray, hope and don’t worry. Do you know what I mean? That’s something that I would – I think it’s a powerful message that he left to all of us.”