I have carried a lot of guilt over Carol’s death for a large portion of my life, I run endless scenarios through my mind of how things somehow could have been different but it always leads back to one place and where the blame truly lies, with my father. It was so final, there was nothing more to say, she was gone. I knew that Carol was dead but yet I didn’t want her to go. I screamed out loud inside the church and my mother held me tightly. I remember the sound of the coffin being lowered, the shock of the thud and the gut wrenching booming noise that has never left my memory.
I believe that Carol watches over her and my other two children each and every day.
My daughter whom I was blessed with carries her name as her middle name and I truly believe that she was a gift and that Carol held her before she was born. She was my sister and I wanted to say goodbye, I also wanted to make a promise that Carol would never be forgotten and she never ever has. I felt ashamed, I was the daughter of the man who murdered her, I felt guilty by association but I didn’t let it stop me from speaking at the service despite the hateful stares and people wondering why the “murderers daughter” is daring to give a speech. The church was divided, my Mother, my brothers and I on one side with almost a hundred of Carol’s friends and members of the police on the other side. I still remember Carol’s funeral like it was yesterday, it was the saddest day of my life. My father had found out her place of work and followed her from work to home, he followed her each working day for two weeks until that fateful day when his murder plan was carried out. A question that never sat right with the people at the hire company and which they later told police. His plan was so matter of fact that when he rang the car hire company he asked for a car that could keep up with the speed of the make and model of my sister’s car. It would later be known that my father had attempted his plan of murder days before but didn’t carry it out. His time was running out, Carol was only four days away from testifying against him in court on multiple charges of rape and abuse. He was intent on silencing her so that the world wouldn’t know what a vile and disgusting sexual predator that he was. We would have done anything that we could to keep her safe but to be honest, I don’t think that it would have changed the outcome, he would’ve found some way to get to her and how do you stop a monster? I think all of us would have done everything very differently that day. Today was that day, all those years ago, when time stood still and it always has, since we lost you Carol. I’d like to think that was the way my sister Carol felt on the day that she went, “to the sky” because to think otherwise is just, it’s just unbearable. Someone once explained death to me and my children in the most beautiful way, it’s when God taps you on the shoulder and says come with me and to heaven you will go.