RACING to her parents' house, Theo Boyd felt her heart beating out of her chest.
She'd had a call telling her there had been a tragic accident, and on arrival was met with the devastating news that her mum was dead – and her dad was responsible.
Her father Joe had been behind the wheel of their tractor on their farm in Texas and accidentally run over wife Sue, 74, instantly crushing her to death.
Recalling the horrific incident in June 2019, Theo, 51, says: "Mum and I had been texting all day and I had not gotten a text back for a couple of hours which I thought was odd.
"I then got a call telling me I needed to get to the farm as there had been an accident.
"When I got there, I learned that my mother had been killed instantly by a tractor that had run over her. They told me my dad had been the one operating it."
Joe was leaning out the side of the 5 tonne Harvester 1468 tractor – nicknamed 'Big Red' – to collect a battery box from Sue when his foot slipped off the clutch.
"The tractor went over the upper part of her body, her hands and right arm," Theo explains.
"Dad thought the tractor was in neutral, but it had slipped into High-1, the fastest gear. My mother was crushed instantly from the shoulders up over her head.
"Every bone in her head, neck, skull and face was completely crushed. She died instantly… the funeral director told me later, 'I don’t think she ever knew.' It was so instant."
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9Theo was beside herself when emergency responders at the scene told her what had happened – just six months shy of her parents' 50th wedding anniversary.
"I remember being on the ground when they told me what happened", she explains.
"I don't remember how I got there but I woke up and I was in my mum's pampas grass. I remembered how we bought that for her and it was her favourite thing. My mind was doing things to take the trauma off me.
"I remembered anything I could to take me away from the situation. I cried and there was this huge fog that came over me."
Former high school teacher Theo missed seeing her mum's body by a matter of minutes.
"My dad kept saying he was so glad we didn't see her in that way but I wanted to," she says.
"She was still my mum. I would have wanted to see her because I had so many questions that were left unanswered."
Inconsolable
Consumed by guilt, her hysterical dad watched as emergency crew prepared Sue's body to be taken to the morgue.
Theo recalls: "They kept Daddy in the ambulance until we arrived on the scene. He was inconsolable and unable to think rationally.
"He was in complete shock, disbelief, angry, cursing, crying, screaming, in utter torment from what had happened.
"He had just started the first moments of complicated grief. He knew his life would never be the same.
They kept Daddy in the ambulance until we arrived on the scene. He was inconsolable and unable to think rationally
"He held me and hugged me hard, saying, 'I’m sorry I killed your mother'. He felt 100 per cent responsible, but it was a tragic accident. The worst kind.
"Days and weeks later, Daddy said that when it first happened, he jumped off the tractor knowing she must be dead, but he didn’t want to believe it.
"He said he called 911, not even realising that maybe she could be okay. He had told the Sheriff and emergency personnel that he wanted to end his life at the tractor scene and go be with her.
"He didn’t because he didn’t want me and my sister to always have questions about what happened there."
Consumed by guilt
As Sue's funeral date approached the family – used to open-casket funerals – faced the difficult decision of whether to let friends and family see her disfigured face.
Theo says: "They had to rebuild her – it was shocking. The funeral man told us it was going to be difficult. He spent 13 hours preparing mum's body so we could see her, and she was beautiful.
"He did not want us to see what my dad had seen. It was amazing what they were able to do, just so that we could see her one last time.
"I'm an old Southern girl and when you go to the funerals, the caskets are open, but Mum was shy anyway and she did not want an open casket – much less if she would have known this would be how she passed.
"So we just decided to close it and it was a beautiful service."
In the months following the funeral Joe was plagued by guilt and blamed himself for the accident, despite Theo and her sister's assurances.
Dad had lost his best friend in the whole world. We did not blame him but we felt immense sorrow for how much he was hurting over it. He blamed himself and that never went away
"The guilt just consumed him," she says. "We had to say to him that it wasn't his fault continually.
"We told him it was just like if he had gotten into a car accident and someone had hit him on mum's side.
"He continually replayed it in his mind over and over, and I don't think he could get rid of that image.
"With his mobility declining, he was lying in bed all day every day with those thoughts… it was more than he could bear.
"He had lost his best friend in the whole world. We did not blame him but we felt immense sorrow for how much he was hurting over it.
"He blamed himself and that never went away. He was sad and lonely.
"I visited and called him every day but I think he got tired of my visits. One day he told me he went to get a card for my sister’s birthday and came home and cried for hours.
"That was something he used to do together with Mum.”
Father's Day tragedy
On Father's Day last year, the family endured yet another tragedy when Joe, 78, took his own life.
"The day before that we all had lunch and he was agitated", Theo recalls.
"He opened his gifts and wanted to go to bed. I told him I would see him on Monday or Tuesday. But for some reason, I thought to go surprise him with breakfast.
"I went over there and that’s when I discovered him."
She continues: "At first I did not know what had happened. I thought he had fallen and landed back on the bed and I called 911 asking them to get there.
"I called my sister screaming and kept going in and out of the room.
"My sister told me I had to go back in and look for signs of whether he had killed himself. It never dawned on me because three years had passed after Mum's accident."
Theo admits she'd bottled up her grief for her mum because she didn't want to show it in front of her dad, but when he passed away, she found herself grieving for both of them.
"I knew I had never been able to grieve my mum and I wondered when that was going to come out – his death opened the floodgates," she says.
"I was grieving for her for the first time – alongside him. I felt every emotion."
Devastating betrayal
To make matters worse, Theo discovered her husband had cheated on her for the third time- the first was just after her mum died – and she filed for divorce.
"That was another huge blow," she says. "It was like the one support system you think you have, you really don’t. That was devastating. I was a mess."
Theo – who is sharing her story to mark Suicide Prevention Month – has written a book called My Grief is Not Like Yours, sharing her story in the hope of helping people dealing with the loss of loved ones.
"If you do not deal with your grief, it may come out later in a depression," she says.
"You have to let it out. Let yourself grieve and be sad. It's okay.
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"Also, try to talk to someone who is trained in complicated grief. If you're experiencing traumatic loss, I cannot stress how important it is to talk to someone trained in that.
"And do not let the unsolicited advice of family and friends cause you to dig further down. Your grief is not like everyone else's."
You’re Not Alone
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost to suicide.
It doesn't discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society – from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It's the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes.
And men are three times more likely to take their own life than women.
Yet it's rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
That is why The Sun launched the You're Not Alone campaign.
The aim is that by sharing practical advice, raising awareness and breaking down the barriers people face when talking about their mental health, we can all do our bit to help save lives.
Let's all vow to ask for help when we need it, and listen out for others… You're Not Alone.
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
- CALM, www.thecalmzone.net, 0800 585 858
- Heads Together, www.headstogether.org.uk
- Mind, www.mind.org.uk, 0300 123 3393
- Papyrus, www.papyrus-uk.org, 0800 068 41 41
- Samaritans, www.samaritans.org, 116 123
- Movember, www.uk.movember.com
- Anxiety UK www.anxietyuk.org.uk, 03444 775 774 Monday-Friday 9.30am-10pm, Saturday/Sunday 10am-8pm
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