‘The pain is still there, there’s not enough time in my life to get over this’
Grandmother June Khanan said the pain of losing her daughter and grandchildren has never got easier. reports.
ON Tuesday, June Khanan will lay flowers on the graves of her daughter and grandchildren as she has done every year on November 1 since 2006.
The former cleaner said the pain is every bit as strong ten years on as it ever was and is determined to make sure her daughter, Caneze, and her grandchildren -Sayrah, Sophia, Alicia Hannah and Adam, are never forgotten.
She said: “It’s really hard, the pain is still there. People say it must be a bit easier now but it never gets easier. There’s not enough time in my life to get over this.”
She added: “I was no longer a nan and Barry was no longer an uncle - I was ready for putting myself six feet under.
“I used to lie there in bed and visualise them all in their graves - my mind was just going crazy.”
June, 68, who was living on Countess Street at the time, has since moved away from Accrington, saying the place held too many painful reminders of what used to be, and now lives in Bolton.
She said: “My son Barry had to clear the house after it happened, it was horrendous.
“Caneze used to live five minutes from our house - everything was just too close and there were too many memories there.
“I used to hear the children coming home from school - I still heard it after it happened, then thought no, they’re not here anymore.
“I’d see other children and think mine should still be walking around. I w was ready for topping m myself.”
She said she remembers h hearing how Mohammed, w who she says was always je jealous of Caneze and her c community work, asked a about his girls when he was still alive after the fire, but never enquired after h his wife.
She said: “They took him into an ambulance and he asked how his girls w were but not Caneze.
“His injuries were bad and that pleased me no end, but then some of his acquaintances wanted us to bury him with the family.
“Our Barry went berserk and said ‘no chance - why do I want to bury a murderer with them?’
“We were climbing the wall, how could they have the nerve to ask us that?”
But yet more tragedy was set to befall the family when June’s grandson, Adam,17, lost his battle with cancer.
She said: “What Adam’s dad did knocked him for six. My son Barry’s wife, Vicky, was like a substitute mum to him after what happened and he’d put his head on her lap.
“He was terminally ill but he didn’t know, he didn’t need to know that.
“Then we lost him and we were heartbroken - he died because of what happened to his mum.”
All that has kept the brave pensioner going over the years is her now only, granddaughter, Barry and his wife Vicky’s daughter, Sascha, whose name is composed of the initials of her dead family’s names.
She said: “I thought I was never going to see this baby - my heart was so relieved when she was born. I can see them all in her - she’s blonde with blue eyes and looks very much like our Sophia.
“Her middle name is Angel because we believe that the family sent her down for us.”
She added that, by strange coincidence, Sascha, now seven, was originally due on November 1. She said: “Barry so wanted her to be born on the 1st but thankfully it was the day after. We have to put a brave face on for her and keep her out of it as much as we can. She knows she has cousins and an auntie who’ve gone to heaven but no details.”
On November 1, the day of the tragedy, June and Barry will go to the cemetery as they always do to lay flowers on the graves.
June said: “They’re all side by side. I just want to see them gathered there all together and watch them come home.”