1995 was the year that rocked us to our very souls. Jessica was seven and a half on May 11. Our last picture of her shows her sitting with her class two days behind, listening to a talk in the Powerhouse Museum. On the 11th she did all the usual things that she enjoyed: practiced piano after school, listed as I read an ongoing story to her ("Please can we have another chapter!"), and went to sleep as normal.

But then she woke feeling headachy, vomited into the toilet, and put her head down to rest. And never woke up again. In spite of the best efforts of the ambulance staff who came quickly when we called, and the medical and nursing staff at Hornsby Hospital, we arrived at The Children's’ Hospital at Camperdown in the early hours of May 12 to be told that she was effectively dead. Our only response was that whatever organs were intact be used to help others, because no one deserves the pain that losing a child entails. For the record, 5 people had their lives saved, and two were given sight, as some balance for the death of a bright child full of joy in living.

I had written little or nothing since our wedding - between busyness and happiness, poetry had been on the back-burner. Three of Jessica's older friends (SaraJoy, Lauren & Brianna) composed a poem that sits on "Jessica's Wall" in our dining room - delightful in its own way, but it's three 10-11 year olds confronted with a tragedy, and their response was the response of children. A few other verses and poems came in, again heartfelt, but not what our Jessica deserved. As far as I was concerned, just as I had often carried Jessica riding on my shoulders, and as I helped carry the coffin to the grave, only a parent can truly carry the burden of a final poem to their daughter.

This is the one poem I cannot judge the merit of. 27 years later, it still brings me in touch with Jessica, her memory and her loss. I don't know if it should be edited and could not do so if I tried - like Jessica, it is frozen in that moment. The best I may be able to do, in the future, may be to write something new.

I don't have any handle on what happens to us after we die. But I have one incident that gives me hope. Juliet's Dad Charlie planted one of the roses (or a cutting) that came to us after Jessica died. It's still alive, half overrun by grass that's difficult to keep under control. It hides in a place where you cannot see it when you drive onto our property.

One afternoon, coming home from work, I parked the car outside the garage so I could open the door, and heard my daughter's voice in my head "Daddy, daddy, come and look at this pretty flower!!" So I went to where the rose was blooming. It's called a Chameleon rose, and the flowers change colour as they develop - and there is no way I could have seen it driving home.

Had I seen it previously and forgotten about it, and then my subconscious put those words into my head because I needed to know Jessica was not "gone"? Who knows? I maintain then and now that it was the first time I had seen it, and the voice in my head was my daughters. If I believe this, or not, nothing changes, because the memory is there crystal clear, 27 years on and still counting, be it real or delusion. As are so many memories of our smart, friendly little girl. There would never have been enough time for our love to be full, but we managed a lifetime of memories in the time we had.