Husband of tragic Jill pays tribute six years on
It’s been almost six years since Drogheda was rocked to the core at the news of the brutal rape and murder of local woman Jill Meagher (nee McKeon) in her adopted home in Melbourne, Australia.
To mark what would have been their 10th wedding anniversary, her husband Tom has paid touching tribute to the woman he said was ‘a warrior for love, life and liberation’.
He notes that he still ‘carries the scars of her death’, when she was ‘ brutally and violently taken from this world’.
“Ten years ago, I was lucky enough to marry this incredible human. When I woke up that day, continuously fumbling over the elusive art of tying a tie and nervously downing cheap white wine way too early in the morning, I imagined the seemingly endless stretch of time we would have together. I imagined our future experiences and all the unpredictable, ridiculous moments that would make up our shared existence.
“While I thought through this imagined future, I scrawled additions and scratched out redundant parts of my wedding speech, and as I wrote (my attention frantically jumping between wine and pen) I daydreamed about what we will be doing in five years, in ten years, in 20 or 30 years - we never made it to five.
“Four years later she was brutally and violently taken from this world”.
He says that even though she is no longer here, he feels Jill’s presence throughout his life.
“Jill communicates to us through the ones she loved and who loved her, through everyone who lives life like she did - full of love, compassion, laughter and a force and energy that was literally breathtaking,” he added.
“I carry the scars of Jill’s death because that’s how I remember to carry her light inside me. Those scars are what connect me and her, they are what teach me, what give me strength, what allow me to hold the confusing mishmash of emotional chaos together and survive, not without her, but with her loving guidance and formidable strength.”
The Drogheda woman, who grew up in Termonfeckin before moving to Australia with her family when she was eight, returned to live in Wheaton Hall in her teens with her parents Edith and George McKeon, and brother Michael, and attended Drogheda Grammar School and St Oliver’s.
Adrian Bayley was sentenced to life in prison, with a 35-year non-parole period, for her rape and murder on September 22nd 2012.
Thousands of Drogheda people attended a special mass in her memory shortly after her funeral.