Siobhan McHale grew up surrounded by a loving family in rural Co Tyrone in the 1960s.
In 1972, their idyllic world was shattered when Siobhan’s sister Kathleen was killed by a terrorist bomb while posting her wedding invitations.
Then 40 years later, her daughter, Gemma, died tragically in a car accident close to the border between counties Fermanagh and Donegal, leaving behind a shattered family, a shocked community and many unanswered questions.
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Gemma, who was 21 and from Castlederg, died after her Peugeot 306 car crashed on the Letter Road between Belleek and Pettigo at around midnight on May 18, 2012.
The University of Ulster student was returning home after visiting her sister Joanne in Co Mayo when her car left the road and ended up nose-down in a field adjacent to Letter Bridge.
"Gemma was a bright, bubbly girl and stunningly beautiful, not just on the outside. She had so much love to give and she got so much love in return.
"She was doing a degree in media at Coleraine at the time of her death and also worked part time in a bridal boutique in Derry. She was due to start a new job at McElhinney's Bridal rooms in Ballybofey the week after she was killed just 13 miles from home," Siobhan, 62, told Belfast Live.
"We got the knock on the door from the police at 3am. The strange thing was that earlier that night we had watched a TV ad about two police officers knocking on the door to give a family that news. Little did we know that five hours later it would be happening to our family."
That fateful knock on the door came 40 years after Siobhan heard a car bomb explode underneath her bedroom window as she lay in her bed on the night of December 14, 1972, which claimed the life of her dear sister Kathleen.
In an effort to deal with the grief of losing her child, Siobhan began writing letters to her beloved daughter. Over time, the letters became a manuscript and eventually turned into a searingly honest and touching memoir.
"After Gemma's death, I started writing letters to her every morning. It was her journal that she had been writing at university so I continued filling it out," Siobhan explained.
"It was like keeping a link with Gemma and a few years later I began to wonder if I could do anything with these letters. That's when I tried writing the book. I didn't want the book to just be letters to heaven but something more so I just went back to the beginning."
In 2016 Siobhan began writing her memoirs, filled with raw feelings and many tear stained pages.
What was to eventually become the 32-chaptered book, 'Good Morning, My Beautiful Angel', quickly took shape and is both a moving tribute to a vibrant young girl and the story of an ordinary family trying to navigate a period of great turmoil.
In it Siobhan traces her family’s journey through grief and despair towards acceptance and healing, chronicling their efforts to draw meaning from a senseless tragedy and their quest to get justice for Gemma through the legal system.
However, the pain of an inquest into Gemma’s death four years after her death affected Siobhan so deeply that it prevented her from continuing with her writing.
"At that point I had just got to the part when we received the knock on the door but after that inquest I couldn't look at the book," she said.
Finally in November 2019 the cloud of three years of writer’s block lifted and Siobhan felt able to resume the book.
"I had to pick it up again at the point of Gemma's funeral and I was up during the night with tears falling onto the laptop but I persevered and got through it," she recalled.
"Soon after that we were in lockdown so I worked night and day on the writing. I had a pen and paper beside the bed and I would waken quite often during the night so I'd jot down any thought that came into my head in case I had forgotten it in the morning."
The book was eventually finished and launched in May of this year, just as the family marked ten years since Gemma died and ahead of the 50th of Kathleen's death this December.
The front cover features a poignant image of Gemma walking along the beach in Portstewart.
"I absolutely love this picture and it's very special. I have it framed in our hallway and every morning I see Gemma walking on Portstewart beach but leaving her footprints in the sand."
After hearing a variety of evidence over the course of a two-day inquest at Enniskillen courthouse in May 2016, Coroner Joseph McCrisken said the McHale family had been left with “many unanswered questions” and were still grieving, but added that their grief demanded answers.
"At the time of Gemma's death we were told it was a single car accident but at the inquest the coroner said it was likely that another vehicle was involved. I hope the book will help another parent in the same situation as myself or a family seeking answers to unanswered questions."
Good Morning, My Beautiful Angel is available in local shops across counties Tyrone, Fermanagh, Donegal, and Mayo, and via Amazon.
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