Real-life reads
Family heartbreak: Lovely Lily’s tragic joyride; Oliver’s twist: “We got our baby through the classifieds!”
Ever since sisters Summer and Lily Moore were little girls, they jumped into each other’s beds every night, giggling and whispering until they fell asleep together. They were best friends as well as siblings.
But on Christmas night last year, 15-year-old Lily told her big sister she wanted to sleep alone. Summer, 17, says, “I thought that was weird, but I said, ‘Oh, come on, Lil! Come hop in bed with me until I fall asleep.’”
Summer had no inkling that Lily – a student at private girls’ school Rangi Ruru and a sensible teen who played netball in the weekends – was plotting to do something she’d never done before. She’d planned to sneak out of the house to go joyriding with some friends.
“Go past two driveways, then wait,” said one of the last texts Lily ever sent, knowing her parents, Mark and Jo Moore, would hear a car idling at the end of their driveway in rural Prebbleton, on the outskirts of Christchurch.
At 10.30pm, Jo, 46, poked her head in the door of Summer’s bedroom to kiss her daughters goodnight after a “great day” – lunch at their grandmother’s house and Christmas dinner on the deck at home.
But Summer woke at 6am on Boxing Day to the sound of her father shouting, “Where is she? Where is she?” and she knew Lily wasn’t beside her in bed.
A police officer had arrived at the house and asked Mark, 44, who runs a drainage company, if he had a daughter named Lily.
Recalls Mark, “I said, ‘Yes, she’s in bed.’ He stood there, looking at me. But before he could say anything, I was off, pacing the house, and yelling and flicking on lights. I couldn’t find her in her bed and she wasn’t in Summer’s bed. All I could think was, ‘Where are you, Lils?’”
“I stayed in the bedroom,” says Jo, who woke to the commotion. “I blocked it out with screaming. I didn’t want to know which child it was.”
By then, Summer was out of bed and demanding answers. “I said, ‘Where’s my little sister?’ He said, ‘She’s been in an accident.’ I remember thinking there was a chance she was in hospital and still alive. I asked him and he just shook his head.”
The police officer told them she hadn’t survived. “In that moment, I felt my heart break,” tells Summer.
Less than two hours after she crept out the back door, the teenager’s lifeless body was found in the front passenger seat of a mangled car, about 20km from her family home, still dressed in her pyjamas.
Final hours
The devastated family has been given an account of what happened. Lisa was picked up from home at 12.45am. The two boys in the car were close childhood friends – Sam Dross, 15, and the car’s driver, 14.
“They were mates and nice boys,” says Jo. No alcohol or drugs were involved.
The Moores have been told that the car drove about 30 minutes to Southbridge, where the group picked up two more boys Lily didn’t know until that night.
At about 1.30am, they arrived at Lake Ellesmere, where they parked and got out. “We don’t know exactly what happened other than an altercation happened at the lake, which resulted in the kids driving home scared,” says Mark.
The car was reportedly travelling at about 115km/h when it failed to take a corner, hit a grass mound and was airborne for 14m before crashing into a row of trees.
The horror Boxing Day smash not only killed Lily – who was not wearing a safety belt – but also her friend Sam and another boy, Cole Christensen-Hull, 15.
“Lily was our sensible good girl – it was just so out of character for her to get in that car,” says Jo quietly. “Whatever gave them a fright, I know Lily would have been scared. She would have wanted to reverse the night and be with us at home.”
Mark adds, “We just wish Lily had called us.”
“How can you protect your kids when you don’t even know where they are?” asks Jo.
Remarkably perhaps, the Moore family has forgiven the young driver of the car. “He has to live with this for the rest of his life, as do we,” explains Mark.
They are in close contact with the teen and his family, as well as the family of Lily’s friend Sam, who lost his life that morning.
“We don’t blame the driver,” explains Mark. “Lily didn’t choose to die, but she did make a decision to get in that car that night.”
In May, Mark and Summer will talk to students at the local college about making good choices, their actions and consequences.
“We don’t want Lily’s life to be taken in vain,” says Mark. “If we can save just one life, that’s a job well done.”
In the meantime, though, the Moores are making the painful adjustment to life as a family of three.
Every Tuesday since Lily was a baby, the family has had dinner with the girls’ grandmother Dianne Burrowes, 75. “That first dinner was hard – three of us, with a chair not filled,” reflects Jo.
Loving tributes
Today, the family all wear matching silver pendants around their necks, imprinted with Lily’s fingerprint after she died. “That’s how we keep her close to our heart,” explains Jo.
Summer has painstakingly dedicated an entire wall in her little sister’s bedroom with hundreds of photos – from a cherubic baby to the stunning teenager she became – each of them with a huge smile on her face. It’s in this room that Summer, Jo and Mark feel closest to Lily. They often drift in to sit on the bed or sleep together in her bed at night.
They know their lives will never be the same, but it’s a comfort that Lily had a good life and a happy life – albeit too short.
“The thing about Lily was that she was always happy – she loved life,” says Jo.
Adds Mark, “She was always singing, dancing and laughing. The house is so quiet without her.”
“Lily was so full of life,” agrees Summer sadly. “She was my whole wide world. I always told her that. The world is just not quite right without Lils.”