LISTEN: Grieving mom speaks to Express at her children’s graves
Monica, who was unconscious in intensive care after the accident, only learned about their deaths after the funeral. At the time, the family could not afford headstones.
“On my way to the graveyard, I saw parents taking their children to school. I have to come here to see my children.”
Grieving mother Monica van Loggerenberg (29) couldn’t hide her tears as she spoke to Express on Monday morning at Zuurfontein Cemetery on Plane Road.
Thanks to a kind-hearted donor, who wished to remain anonymous, she could finally have a gravestone made for her two children.
Jean-Pierre (8) and Meckayla (3) van Loggerenberg died in an Atlas Road car crash on July 8 last year.
LISTEN: grieving mother speaks to Express
Monica, who was unconscious in intensive care after the accident, only learned about their deaths after the funeral. At the time, the family could not afford headstones.
“Now, I feel like I can finally get some closure,” Monica said, with tears streaming down her face.
With her was fiancé Juan van Niekerk (32) and their daughter, Abigail (22 months).
“Every time we visit the graves, Abby touches the crosses and talks. She knows we’re vising her brother and sister,” Monica said.
The family of three will move to Jeffreys Bay in October to live with Juan’s mother.
“Kempton Park just isn’t the same for us anymore, and financially it isn’t going too well,” Monica explained.
“It hurts to leave the graves behind, but I know it’s not my children I’m leaving. They went straight to heaven.” According to Monica, she hopes to visit the graves each year on the children’s birthdays.
As the headstone joining Jean-Pierre and Meckayla’s two graves is finally revealed, Monica wept openly.
“My children,” she managed to say, as Juan comforted her.
The stone has a picture of the children on it, and a message Jean-Pierre wrote shortly before his death: “Kan ons liev wees vir god (can we love god)”, followed by “Mom, dad and little sister miss you.”
More than a year after the fatal accident, Monica and Juan have not been able to see legal action taken against the driver who crashed into them from behind.
According to senior prosecutor Pieter Erasmus, he returned the case docket, with urgent queries, to Kempton Park SAPS on August 18.
Kempton Express is waiting for comment from Kempton Park SAPS.
