In an emotional letter revealed Thursday, June 12, on the Gamers’ Tribune — practically one yr after their loss of life — Meredith mirrored on the second she came upon Johnny had handed. The Gaudreau brothers had been serving to put together for his or her youthful sister Katie’s marriage ceremony on the time of the tragedy.

“You kissed all of us goodbye and stated you’d see us later. And that was that,” she recalled. “Katie referred to as, and she or he stated one thing had occurred however she did not know what precisely. My dad drove me over to your mother and father’, and I used to be pondering the entire time about how I used to be going that will help you by no matter it could possibly be that had occurred to Matty. After which I walked up the entrance porch and discovered absolutely the worst had occurred and that it was each of you.”

“I used to be in shock. I used to be keeled over for days sick to my abdomen,” she wrote. “It is fully indescribable. The one one who can relate to me is my very own sister-in-law. I see her and my coronary heart breaks for her.”

Johnny was 31 and Matthew, 29, when a drunk driver, Sean Higgins, allegedly struck and killed them close to their hometown. Higgins now faces six costs, together with aggravated manslaughter and reckless vehicular murder. He has pleaded not responsible.

The occasion was postponed and is now deliberate for July 2025.

“To go from preparing for an attractive marriage ceremony all week along with your sister, to being in a funeral house with Madeline attempting to determine all this stuff out — it simply harm a lot,” Meredith, who was pregnant with the couple’s third baby on the time, shared. “It was bizarre and it was terrible. I needed to go to the physician for our third child. The primary of my appointments the place you were not holding my hand.”

Meredith and Johnny shared daughter Noa, 2, and son Johnny Jr., who was simply 15 months outdated when his father died. Meredith later welcomed their third baby, son Carter, in April. Matthew and his spouse, Madeline, had been additionally anticipating their first baby on the time.

“I checked out Noa and child Johnny and I felt a ache that I hadn’t felt earlier than,” she wrote. “Our two infants who need to develop up with out their dad, with out their wonderful uncle.”

She described the crushing weight of grief that adopted, writing that it obtained so dangerous, she might hardly rise up.

“I considered our child within me. I could not rise up,” she admitted. “I used to be awake and having nightmares. Pondering of you in that second. Pondering of Matty. It is simply the worst factor I might have ever imagined. And straight away, I missed you greater than I knew was attainable.”

Regardless of the sorrow, Meredith stated the assist from the hockey world introduced her some consolation. Johnny’s former workforce, the Columbus Blue Jackets, honored him earlier than their first preseason recreation of the 2024–25 season, and gamers wore helmet stickers with doves and the numbers 13 (Johnny) and 21 (Matthew, who performed for Boston School) on them. Patches had been additionally added to jerseys in the beginning of the common season.

“The hockey world, the sports activities world, they confirmed up for us, too,” she wrote. “To see folks go from simply understanding about ‘Johnny Hockey,’ to listening to about how wonderful of a father you had been, of an individual you had been? I do know that is what would have mattered to you.”