WHAT have I DONE?
Theo Boyd, 51, lost her mum in a tragic accident – then history repeated itself
Opening the fridge, I took out a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries and started piling them up onto a crystal plate. Arranging them artfully, I snapped a pic to send to my mum Sue and sister Hannah.
They look great, Mum quickly text back.
I’d always been close to my family, sending messages back and forth with Mum and Hannah several times a day.
Mum, 74, and my dad Joe lived on a farm two hours away from my home in Texas – but I saw them a few times a month, and spoke to Mum every day.
Dad had taken over the family farm from my grandparents, and when he and Mum married she helped out, too. Although they were retired, they still kept a hand in. Married nearly 50 years, they were both still very much in love – you never saw one without the other.
That day, back in July 2019, I’d been messaging Mum about all sorts of silly things as I got ready to go to a fundraising event that evening with my then-husband – I was taking the strawberries along as my contribution to the buffet.
As I went to get dressed for the party, I tried on a fancy dress outfit I’d bought for an assembly at the school where I worked as an English teacher and sent her a snap. When she didn’t reply straight away, it was odd – but assuming she was busy, I carried on getting ready. As I went downstairs to grab my bag, the landline rang.
‘Is that Mr and Mrs Boyd’s daughter?’ a voice said.
‘Yes,’ I said, confused. ‘You need to come to your parents’ farm,’ the voice replied. ‘There’s been an accident there.’ I felt as though I was underwater. At first, I thought something must have happened to Dad – at 75, his health was declining.
The person on the phone couldn’t tell me anything more.
Grabbing the keys, we jumped straight in the car and I drove there as fast as I could.
I spoke to Hannah on the way, and tried texting Mum – but there was still no answer.
Please let Dad be OK, I prayed silently.
But as we drove and there was still no word from Mum, it dawned on me – something might have happened to her.
Eventually we pulled into the farm, and I was blinded by all the flashing lights that lit up the fields. My heart was racing.
Then I heard screaming, and realised it was Dad in the back of an ambulance – but before I could get to him, their neighbour approached me.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘There was a terrible accident... your mum is dead.’
I just stared at him, confused and in shock.
‘What do you mean?’ I quizzed.
‘It appears as though your mum was crushed to death by a tractor,’ he told me gently.
Falling to my knees, it felt as though the world had stopped turning. Hannah arrived a few minutes after me, too, and together we found out what had happened.
A paramedic explained that Dad had been in his ‘Big Red’ International Harvester 1468 tractor, when his foot had accidentally slipped off the clutch. Mum had been Dad’s number one farmhand – she’d gone to hand him a battery box at the same time as he turned the tractor on, and as she reached up to give it to him, his foot slipped.
He’d thought the tractor was in neutral, but it was in drive.
Mum had been killed instantly – her body had been completely crushed.
It was a lot to take in, and the paramedic comforted me as I sat in a heap on the floor.
‘Your dad is OK, he’s in that ambulance,’ he said, pointing. ‘You should go and see him.’
Pulling myself to my feet, I could hear him crying and screaming hysterically as I made my way over to him.
‘What have I done?’ he sobbed. ‘I’ve killed the love of my life.’
He was completely inconsolable, blaming himself for the freak accident.
I tried to comfort him as I struggled to get my head around what had happened. He wasn’t in a good place.
I stayed with him that night as he screamed and cried all night long.
‘I’m sorry I killed your mother,’ he sobbed over and over, as I felt his agonising pain like a knife in the heart.
‘It was an accident,’ I told him, tears in my eyes. ‘You’re not to blame.’
Hannah and I tried to come to terms with losing Mum as we planned her funeral, which took place five days later on 3 August. Over 500 people came to pay their respects.
Mr Fine, funeral director at Marshall & Marshall and a family friend, had spent 13 hours reconstructing Mum’s body ahead of the funeral. The
‘I’m sorry I killed your mother,’ he sobbed