Memorial to Tanya Burr, 1981-2002

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star   

Part Three (of Three)

I think about the photo I took of Tanya at her 21st party four months before her death. She just chanced to glance around as I prepared to take the photo and the end result looked terrific. As it was taken on my digital camera, I cropped it down, printed it out on a sheet of paper and hung it on the wall above my computer. I kept imagining it on the front page of the newspaper if something bad ever happened to her. It duly appeared on the front page of the Manawatu Evening Standard the day after her body was found.

I appreciate that had we not gone to Europe, there would have been far fewer recent photos left of Tanya, as she had never enjoyed having her photo taken. In Europe she got over that, but still I wish I had more of them. She herself preferred photos of cats! I am so glad we had some videos that even include her talking.

I also think of some of the things that have happened that probably wouldn't have happened in the nice way they have, had Tanya not died. These include getting to know some of her friends of the recent and more distant past. I had known Anita and her family well for ten years, but only met Emma two days after Tanya's death when I arrived in Rotorua. Tanya had spoken of her, so I 'sort of' knew her, but I got to know her properly through the various court appearances and then when she, her little daughter and her sister moved down to Palmerston North and for a time rented a house just down the road. As Anita and Emma were the same age as Tanya, I kind of see Tanya in them. I can see why Tanya enjoyed their company - just as I have enjoyed their company too.

Getting acquainted with other young friends from the past has been nice too. Nicola, who Tanya spent time with in the third form, inspired the poem I wrote for this website - the first time I actually felt free to publically say things I felt. Her life has had its very sad moments since then and she suggested the way she had dealt with her own recent grief. Dane, who was at pre-school and then primary school with Tanya, even travelled by bus to come up to the sentencing. It was very nice to have him there, and to have corresponded with him by email.

All in all, it has been wonderful having all these and a number of other young people in reach at such a time, to remind me that Tanya had impacted on their lives. Certainly this includes the various passengers from around the world (especially the US and Australia) who had travelled with Tanya aboard the Contiki bus trip around Europe only days before her death. Even the manner in which the Contiki passengers heard about Tanya's death and were able - via the internet - to find me within days to pass on their condolences, seems amazing. I have heard from a number of them since then and their memories have helped fill in the last three weeks of Tanya's life.

Then of course are the people I have met since Tanya's death, and others who I have known for years, who have also lost children to tragedies of one sort or another. One friend, whose young child had drowned in a freak beach accident, mentioned how they found that people they barely knew or even didn't previously know, had been ever so supportive, while others they thought would support them through their trauma, did exactly the opposite. She also spoke of the number of people - some she had known for years, had proven to have suffered some similar tragedy that she had previously known nothing off. 

I have certainly experienced all these things - and I have especially appreciated getting to know Jeanette, mother of Michael, a classmate of Tanya's at Whakarongo School in 1994. He was killed in a car crash in Palmerston North nine months before Tanya's death. We and others are thinking about writing a book on the experience of coping with losing a child - and to us they were still just children, even if they had just reached their 20s. 

It is tragic to think of that one close-knit class of 1994 having now lost to tragedy three of its children, the third being Seth, who was killed in a car crash just before Tanya moved to Rotorua. Seth's mum wrote me a lovely card just after Tanya was killed. Tanya was well aware of Seth's death, but I don't think she knew what happened to Michael - because I didn't know at the time just which ex-Whakarongo School boy he was.

Tanya had been very conscious of tragedy in the lives of others she identified with - perhaps most especially six-year-old Teresa Cormack, murdered in Napier on 19 June 1987. Tanya was one month older than Teresa, and she was well aware that this little girl, who looked a lot like Tanya did then, had been snatched en route to school. This action was terrifying for little children - and their parents - throughout the whole country.

As she soon realised to have been the case with Teresa in her last minutes, Tanya had been the victim of a very devious 13-year-old paedophile neighbour of my parents when she was three. Luckily he was not too successful on this occasion (he being more accustomed to little boys and dirty books), but the memory stayed with Tanya and affected her thereafter. Her life-long compassion for Teresa was a special part of this. 

Tanya was delighted when Teresa's killer was finally arrested on 26 February 2002 after DNA technology developed to the point where he was caught. Tanya came down from Rotorua for a visit a few days later, and I can vividly recall her standing near our ranchslider delightedly making sure I realised that Jules Mikus had been arrested and how much this pleased her. She would have been even more delighted to have heard on 8 October 2002 that he had been found guilty of the offence. However, by this time she herself had been dead 23 days and we were well into the prolonged run of court appearances that eventually led to her own killer's conviction ten months later. Perhaps she knew this anyway.

Sometimes things happen here - probably all perfectly explainable, succh as probably forgetting to turn lights off and then unexpectedly finding them still turned on etc., or finding Tanya's missing watch (I only knew she had one after finding its guarantee card and a spare link from the strap) under our spare bed well over a year after she last slept in it two days before her death. 

Then comes the highly coincidental choice for a grove of about 20 identical young pink Camelia trees that the City Council has planted around the aforementioned new little shelter room at the cemetery that has most conveniently been built just a few metres from Tanya's grave. By chance I looked at the name tags left on several of them just after they were planted, and their name is 'Paradise Hilda' (pictured below) - so named after the Australian breeder's grandmother. I slightly choked up as Tanya's murder inquiry was called Operation Hilda. Given that the choice was made as the donor of the building's late wife had loved pink Camelias, whoever selected the actual strain of tree would not have given a thought to this other Rotorua-sourced connection.

I realise that some do and some don't believe in an Afterlife. I personally won't know until my turn comes. However, there is something comforting to think that 'Tanya might have influenced things'. 

Tanya would not want to be forgotten - although her sense of insecurity would probably have led her to believe we would all have quickly forgotten her long before now. Certainly those of us who knew her will never forget her - but what a horrible price for her to pay to have achieved that 'honour'.

'Galaxy' Background resources