My sister, Jacqui
Clacton, Essex — July 24, 1973
I awake to seem my parents standing by the door of our holiday flat. I think my Dad speaks first. “We’ve just come from the hospital,” he says.
I had been there with them at this ‘hospital’ on the seafront the previous evening. We had gone with my ten-year-old sister, Jacqueline, who had a slight fever and a swelling on one side. The medical staff who examined her were not too concerned but there was an outside chance of appendicitis. They decided to keep her in overnight as precaution
I remember feeling sorry for my sister as she was missing holiday time. Jacqui had been a bit unlucky like that — she’d had a bad squint that had meant the indignity of an eye-patch and, more worryingly for my parents, one serious medical emergency a couple of years earlier. That had landed her with a high fever in the A & E at Hammersmith Hospital. Jacqui had bounced back from that, though, and a few months later was fearlessly clambering out through a window onto our second floor roof — something that still turns my legs to jelly just thinking about it.
Like my dad, she had an energy that drew people to her —and a gift for making them laugh. A bit of his temper, too. I still have the scar on my lip from when she threw a Nat West Globe Money Box at me (a present from my Aunt Louisa).
That afternoon she was putting on a brave face but I must have sensed that she might be a little sad, scared even. She was an avid reader so to cheer her up I gave her an Enid Blyton book she hadn’t read, a Famous Five, I think.
I left in the early evening to see a film I had found in the local paper. Don’t remember much about it other than it was weird and disturbing — something about pirates, I think. I seem to remember a monkey getting killed.
The rest is a blur. I assume my parents collected me from the cinema and I know that they were back in the flat when the call came in the middle of the night.
And then they were standing in front of me, pale faced, destroyed.
“We’ve just been to the hospital. Jacqui died last night.”
Some time in the early hours of the morning a nurse had been doing her rounds. She was surprised to find my sister sitting up in bed, reading the book I had given her.
“You need to get to sleep now, Jacqui,” the nurse said. My sister nodded and began to say something. Then she fell forward.
And that was the end.
In most children, myocarditis is triggered by an infection, usually viral, involving the heart. There are no known risk factors for developing myocarditis.
There is no record I can find of an inquest. In the immediate aftermath everything was confused: I remember a brain tumour being mentioned and then days later Dad saying something about a heart valve. Then it seemed to settle on myocarditis — put simply her heart her stopped.
Recently, my Uncle Pat has kindly passed everything he can remember — he helped my father with all the formalities: arranging the grave (where mum and dad followed her and I have a place reserved) and the death certificate. Pat says that he doctor who certified my sister’s death said that there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent it.
These days that would probably not have been enough to satisfy a grieving family. Questions would be asked, answers demanded.
We never felt this way — and I still don’t. I don’t blame anyone.
The only thing I regret is leaving Jacqui alone in the hospital that night. It upsets me to think of her alone in those early hours.
I wish I had been there with her. I wish she was with me now.
My uncle drove us home from Clacton, in a van, I think. Three of my aunts sat with me in the back. It shocked me that they were all crying.
I wonder how I coped with those early weeks. Perhaps mercifully it’s all a fog from which I can only recall weird details. The Northern Ireland guy in the adjacent holiday flat coming in to offer condolences and then downing a half bottle of scotch, for example. And our West Indian neighbour who joined us in the hearse for the twenty-five yard journey to the church.
I withdrew into myself, watching everything from the outside. My Aunt Sister Kyran later said that I took on too much responsibility — today, of course, I would have been marched off to see grief counsellors.
But what could they have said? An honest executive summary of the emotional landscape would not have been reassuring.
You’re going to live the rest of your life as an only child. Oh and your mum has a serious mental illness. Best of luck with that.
When I was at College I had a dream that my sister was alive again and playing piano. I cried when I awoke — and odd things can still set me off. More than forty years later I still miss my sister beyond words.
Part of me died that day but it’s also true that a part of Jacqui stayed here with me- and with everyone who came into contact with her.
In memory of Jacqueline McGovern (1962–1973)
