CORRIE LIVED AS IF EACH DAY WAS HIS LAST
TRAGIC LESSON FOR MUM Memorial service for missing airman
EXCLUSIVE Patrick Hill THE heartbroken mother of tragic airman Corrie Mckeague says his death has taught her to enjoy every day as if it’s her last.
Nicola Urquhart, speaking ahead of yesterday’s memorial service for her son, said: “I have to accept it and be able to live my life. Life is way too short. Corrie lived his every day like it was his last. He always had.
“I think that is the only way all of us should do it – live it like it’s your last, love your family, love your friends and enjoy your life, otherwise what are we here for?”
Corrie, 23, vanished in September 2016 during a night-out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. His body was never found but an inquest in March ruled he had been crushed to death after climbing into a bin.
Corrie’s five-year-old daughter Ellie, who was born after he disappeared, was at yesterday’s service at St Edmund’s Church in nearby Honington, near the
RAF base he served at.
Nicola, 53, who for years had urged more police searches for her Senior
Aircraftman son, admitted she might never have closure but had found “a peace” that there is nothing more she can do.
Peace
She said she is grateful to have had the chance to ask questions at his inquest.
“My closure is being able to say, ‘There is nothing else that I feel I could ask of anyone or I could do myself’.
“I am at peace. I don’t need to be asking for anywhere else to be searched now.”
Nicola thanked Corrie’s former bosses for organising the service. She and other relatives picked readings and hymns, as well as music by the City of Norwich Pipe Band.
She said: “It’s a day to celebrate Corrie, for us to be able to officially publicly say goodbye to him and just be able to, not close that chapter in our lives, but say we are on to the next stage. It feels like the right thing.”
Nicola, from Dunfermline, Fife, said: “The RAF was Corrie’s life and was also his family. They have supported me, they have supported Ellie and her mum, and I don’t know how we would have gotten through this without the RAF.”
RAF Honington station commander Piers ‘Dutch’ Holland said: “Our thoughts continue to be with SAC Mckeague’s family, friends and colleagues and all those whose lives he touched.”
patrick.hill@people.co.uk