Mum’s pain at losing her girl
Mum tells of heartbreak of losing daughter just days before Christmas
A HEARTBROKEN mum has described the “torture” she endured after her daughter died hours before they were due to spend the day Christmas shopping.
A HEARTBROKEN mother has described the “torture” she endured after her teenage daughter died hours before they were due to spend the day Christmas shopping together.
Maria Davison also told how just two days before Christmas a bracelet charm bearing angel wings, which her daughter Jenna had bought her as a present, arrived at their home.
Trainee hairdresser Jenna was due to go shopping with her mother and grandmother on December 9 last year – two days after mum Maria’s 41st birthday. But after a night in at home on December 8 Jenna died suddenly in her sleep from a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol. The tragedy has left her mum Maria utterly heartbroken.
“I do feel her in my heart,” Maria said, surrounded by pictures of Jenna at her home in Sarn, Bridgend. “I try to think she’s still here.
“It gets me up and gets me out of bed. But I just exist. We were always together but I don’t even leave the house any more. I just don’t want to.”
The timing of Jenna’s death just before Christmas meant the festive period was especially hard for Maria.
“We had to get up [on Christmas Day] because of my son,” said Maria.
“Christmas Day was awful. Whereas I should have been Christmas shopping, I was making funeral plans.
“Stuff that I’d ordered for her was being delivered. The day before Christmas Eve – she must have ordered me a Pandora charm. It was a pair of angel wings.
“Her funeral was before New Year’s Eve. The whole of December, though, I don’t know if I’ve even mentally blocked it out. I keep getting flashbacks.”
On December 8 last year Jenna was having a night in with her partner, Melissa Nottingham, at home after deciding not to go to Winter Wonderland in Cardiff.
A fter drinking vodka, listening to music, and watching YouTube videos together the pair had taken cocaine before heading to bed in the early hours of the Sunday morning.
But Jenna never woke up. She was just 18 when she died.
Growing up Jenna had always been a bubbly child and from a young age knew what she wanted to do.
“All she ever wanted to do was be in hair and make-up. She started her first apprenticeship at 16.
“She wanted to travel the world. She wanted to get into the film and TV industry and do make-up.
“From 17 she was always doing brides’ makeup. She’s always done it for her mates. She’s really outgoing and the life and soul but she was a home girl as well.
“She loved work. She broke her back two years ago – she fell out of a window and it was touch and go for a while. It was lifechanging. But she was so feisty in the Heath [University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff] and she was up and walking in six days. She was back at work with a back brace on.”
The night before she died Maria said Jenna had been enjoying herself and was dancing around and singing her heart out. But her sudden death meant Maria never got to give her daughter a proper goodbye.
“She was just her normal bubbly self,” Maria said. “She had a drink and went upstairs with her friend and I went up to say goodnight and they were singing Mamma Mia songs and I went to bed.
“Then after I thought I heard her in the morning but I had a migraine so I didn’t panic. I thought I heard her.
“It was about 3.40pm and I woke up because her dad was shouting. I was defensive because I thought she had a hangover so I naturally got up and she was laying in bed. But he was shouting at her because she wouldn’t wake up.
“It was clear straight away what was happening. But I did think that the paramedics would be able to bring her around.
“They were trying CPR but it wasn’t working. The paramedics came and then loads of police turned up. The paramedic came downstairs and told me there was nothing more they could do and I begged and begged and begged them – I didn’t understand. I was screaming at them, ‘Why haven’t you tried?’.
“I slept in the next bedroom while she was dying. Can you imagine the guilt?”
Eventually Maria was able to see her daughter to say goodbye.
“The police came in and I wanted to go back upstairs to see her but they wouldn’t let me,” said Maria.
“It was bad enough losing her but it was hours, maybe even six hours, and I just begged them to put a blanket over her.
“I was so violently ill as well. I felt as though my world had crumbled.
“Then they let me say goodbye to her. But she had been left so long her whole bedroom was just putrid. It was overwhelming. It’s going to stay with me for ever.”
An inquest into Jenna’s death found she had taken morphine and cocaine as well as alcohol, forming a “deadly and toxic combination” that ultimately killed her.
Jenna had been taking morphine tablets since the accident in 2017 when she fell 30ft from a window on to railings.
Her sudden death left Maria devastated – and she now wants to warn others about the dangers of mixing drugs and alcohol.
“I didn’t know,” Maria said. “It’s surprising how many people do die of morphine-based products – mainly with alcohol but also drugs.”
Jenna would have turned 19 on June 29.
“It was horrific. And my sister passed away two years ago of cancer.
“It was her birthday Sunday [ June 30],” said Maria.
“I can’t think really about the future. I don’t want to. I don’t want to go out and do anything any more. Me and Jenna did everything together.
“I just exist. I feel like I just have to wait now until I die to see her.
“She was my best friend. Everyone said she was a mini-me in every single way.
“She used to message me 30 times a day. I was so used to it because it had always been like that. That’s the thing that I miss the most.
“I used to complain about taking her into work and picking her up but my body clock is still there.
“She used to get up 5.30am to get ready for work but I still wake up at that time everyday.
“It was the worst thing that could ever have happened. I loved her more than anything else in the world.
“She was everything.”