By KATH GANNAWAY
MARY Bariola hid photos of her son’s car crash for years.
One is graphic.
It’s not a photo she dwells on, but it still haunts her.
“That image never goes from your memory,” she said last week as Easter, one of the deadliest periods on the roads, comes up.
It’s 16 years on 11 May since 34-year-old Mark died in a car crash on St Hubert’s Road, in Coldstream.
It changed her and husband Renato’s lives.
It changed the lives of Mark’s partner and their unborn daughter. It changed the lives of Mark’s three brothers.
But, out of Mary’s grief, it has also changed the lives of numerous other parents who have lost a child, either on the roads, or through other circumstances.
Mary became involved with the support group Compassionate Friends Victoria as she sought to deal with the grief … that the pain in her voice, even now, says is still very much a part of her life.
Mary said she struggled to cope with overwhelming grief after Mark died, but found it helpful to talk about her pain.
“It is important to know that the way you are feeling is the right way to feel, if you feel like you need to talk about it, talk.
“If you need to cry, cry,” she said.
Mary is now in her eighth year of running a social luncheon group, Yarra Valley Compassionate Friends, a support group for bereaved parents and siblings.
Mary knows that there will be other families over Easter, perhaps some who live in her own part of the world, perhaps some whose family member or friend has died on Yarra Ranges roads, who will get the knock on the door that will change their lives forever.
For Mary and Mark’s partner Janet, news of his death didn’t come from that dreaded door-stop delivery, but at the scene of the crash.
When Mary speaks of the events leading up to that kick-in-the-guts moment, there’s a particular sadness as she says Mark had begun a happy period in his life as he focused on settling down and starting a family.
She said she knew something had gone wrong on the afternoon of the accident because Mark was due home from work and he was always on time.
When Janet called Mary an hour after he should have been home and told her he still wasn’t home, they began calling hospitals.
They could not get any information until Janet called Triple-zero and began explaining to the operator the route that Mark took to get home.
When she mentioned that he would drive down St Huberts Road to get back to Healesville, the operator went silent on the other end of the line.
It was late when Mary and Janet decided to trace Mark’s route and they soon saw a car door and pack rack being cleared away by a tow-truck driver.
“We found his car door on the side of the road, but nothing else,” she said.
“I ran up to the driver, asking him where my son was.”
The police hadn’t contacted the family yet, but when Mary called from the tow-trucks’ phone, “they told us to stay put, they would come to us”.
When police arrived at the scene they told the women what had happened.
They explained how Mark had tried to pass the truck in front of him but lost control on the newly-laid gravel and his car hit a tree.
Before he died, Mark told the people who came to his aid that he could hear the ambulance coming.
Mary said she cannot forget the trauma of that night, and in an ideal world, no-one would have to suffer that shock, and the enduring loss.
“You work your life around the grief, but your life changes when you lose a child and it’s never the same,” she said.
“It’s a part of you that’s gone.”
“At least I am lucky enough that Mark left something of himself behind,” she said, adding that she has a lovely relationship with her grand-daughter Grace, and with Janet.
“Grace is 15 now, 16 in September and she looks just like Mark; she is gorgeous,” she says, her voice lifting for the first time in the conversation.
Mary says Compassionate Friends gave her an outlet for her grief and that talking gives parents courage.
“Just listening to them can help,” she says.
The Yarra Valley group meets on the third Thursday of each month and is for anyone who has lost a child.
It’s a group Mary says she wishes would never gain another member.
“I don’t want new members … I don’t want any more children to die,” she says.
“But, we know that’s not reality, and if by sharing a lunch, talking and listening, we can help each other get on with life, that’s what we’ll do,” she said.
Mary’s plea for parents, sons, daughters … everyone who will be travelling on the roads over Easter, is to take care.
“I would just say to them, think of their own lives, and how precious they, and others on the roads, are to the people in their lives.
“Drive carefully; don’t be in a hurry.”
“Mark might have been late home that day.
“We wish he had been late … just late.”
Bereaved Parents’ Support
YARRA Valley Compassionate Friends social luncheon group meets on the third Thursday of each month for parents who have lost a child. The next meeting is on 16 April. Mary can be contacted on 5962 3287.
Compassionate Friends Victoria can be contacted on 9888 4944 or visit www.compassionatefriendsvictoria.org.au
