The three
of us - me, my youngest son and my husband - were shown straight to a family
room where we were joined by the policewoman and Luke’s girlfriend.
Medics came in and out asking
questions then briefly everyone left. When the police, the doctor and the
nurses all came back in, I knew. Despite the efforts of a passerby and the
paramedics by 9.00pm he had been pronounced dead. Luke died at 24 years old
of Hypertrophic Cardiomyiopathy.
Luke was the middle of my three
sons; he was a real character and larger than life in so many ways. From the
moment he was born Luke seemed to have something to prove, he was never
satisfied unless everything he did was bigger, better, stronger than
everyone else and of course he demanded to be loved the most. Of course I
love all my sons equally but some of you will recognise that some children
just demand more, Luke was one of those and somehow that makes the loss seem
even greater.
As a small child Luke was found
to be seriously allergic to many different foods; as a result he was on a
very restricted diet – this turned into a lifelong obsession with healthy
eating (apart from fast food of course). As a youngster Luke was either
giving life 120% or he was asleep; there were never any half measures with
Luke and he continued like that as an adult.
He
worked harder than anyone I have ever met and was determined to achieve
something with his life. He would work all day, come home, go to the gym and
renovate his house; there were periods when he owned his first house that he
had a day and evening job and still managed to renovate a house.
This was the second house he
had bought which he was going to do up, he’d also just got planning
permission to build another house on the site; life was exciting for him
with so much to look forward to.
Luke still managed to find
plenty of time for a busy social life. He was a talented sportsman and until
very recently Luke had played hockey for Middleton and Bognor 1st
Team and as a teenager he played for Sussex and had trials for the England
under 18 squad. The previous year Luke had both a hernia and a broken wrist,
when he returned to playing hockey in the autumn he complained of being
breathless and couldn’t continue to play – we all wrongly assumed he was
unfit after 10 months of no sport.
Looking back - as I can’t stop
doing - there were many signs that all was not right with Luke. He was
exhausted all the time but we were not surprised - after all, look how much
he was doing. Looking back at photographs his colour had changed with
increasingly rosy cheeks, he was easily breathless and had briefly passed
out but the doctor put this down to acute pain from his hernia. Why
would you imagine these as signs his heart was failing? In retrospect I
can’t understand how I could have missed all these things, after all I’m his
Mum and Mums are supposed to know when something is wrong.
We held Luke’s funeral in the
garden of our house under a large marquee and it poured all through the
service. It was an unconventional funeral to reflect the kind of
person Luke was. He was never interested in conforming and delighted in
being different; if Luke was in the room everyone knew it. He was bright,
funny, loud, articulate, loyal, affectionate, demanding and volatile I could
go on but the words can’t even begin to describe him. Friends and family
paid tribute to Luke and we all felt he would have been really proud of the
whole event.
Such a big personality leaves
such a big hole. On the surface I’m surviving - I get on with my life,
I go to work, I see family and friends I have a new granddaughter who is
gorgeous but none of it is enough; mostly I feel like I’m going through the
motions of life and it requires such an effort I am constantly exhausted.
