Casey Veal lost her 10-month-old son Zayden in the most brutal way possible. Now, she’s written a beautiful open letter to honour her son’s memory ahead of a fundraiser this weekend.
In April last year, a Supreme Court jury in Victoria found 19-year-old Harley Hicks guilty of entering Casey Veal’s home in Victoria on June 15, 2012, and beating her son Zayden to death.
Related: ‘I sat through the trial of my baby’s killer.‘
Hicks was high on the drug ice when he murdered the 10-month-old boy using a makeshift baton.
Now, almost three years since the unimaginably awful death of her baby, brave Casey Veal has written a stunning open letter to her little boy.
She has published the letter ahead of a skydiving fundraiser she’ll be holding today, Saturday 21 March — which she hopes will bring her peace, and make her feel closer to her son’s spirit.
Ms Veal told Mamamia she hoped her charity skydive — which will raise funds to build ‘Where Angels Play: Zayden’s memorial playground’ in Bendigo, Victoria — will also help bring her peace.
“I believe skydiving will be the closest I can be to my angel in heaven — that during the free fall in the divine silence I will feel that connect again with my son, that I will be able to let go of what has been holding me down,” she told Mamamia.
She said that while she was “a little anxious” about the jump, she was “so very, very excited to achieve such a courageous action” and that her eldest son Xavier was excited to see his mum embrace the challenge.
Ms Veal wrote the open letter ahead of her skydive “to help free myself of the guilts, the wrongs that I cannot take responsibility for”, she told Mamamia.
“It has taken a long time and a lot of healing to reach this point and feel brave enough to publish my thoughts,” she added.
An edited version of the letter, republished with Ms Veal’s permission, is below.
Dear baby boy,
The day is approaching; the day I jump from plane at the closest point to heaven I can achieve.
In those few seconds of freefall you will be there right next to mummy like you were, and always will be. A moment in time I will treasure as ours once again.
It just saddens me when I reach the ground you won’t be there.
Your birth was a moment in time I treasure; perfection and pure joy frozen in time.
These small moments in time forever etched in memories — allowing the happiest times of my life to be frozen in time.
To say I miss you would be an understatement. More closer to: I ache, I yearn, I cry for your return. Knowing reality steals all future memories is a fate worst than your death.
I find my days are often filled with ‘what ifs’, ‘whys’ and ‘how comes’.
Spending my nights laying in the silence, quietly imagining what you would look like; how you would be following your brother around; how developed you would have become. How fast you would run and jump and play; how your little voice would sound.
But the hardest of all is living with the guilt; the all absorbing blame that isn’t mine to bare. But a torture I cannot deny.
For I was Zayden’s mother; his protector his care giver his best friend.
He was born pure and innocent; perfect in every single way.
I was blessed with two beautiful boys to love and adore.
But yet I could not protect you, my mini-me, from the deep and dark evil the world hid. I couldn’t protect you from monsters that adults feared. From a monster that never should have had the chance to become a piece of our life.
The day I held you and said my final goodbye I screamed, I cried but most of all I begged your forgiveness.
I felt like I had failed you, I didn’t protect you.. It’s something to this day, 999 days later, that I struggle with daily.
Even after two years, right months, and 24 days; even after it being shown to me over and over through out court, throughout the media, and through others — I still hold a tiny peice of that guilt, that failure to protect — even knowing I could not have done anything different, that I loved my son and did everything possible to keep him safe.
He was in his bed asleep for the night, FFS! He was supposed to be in a safe place.. In our family home!
I know the guilt I still carry over the many whys and what ifs such as:
Why didn’t our dog bark? If I had hassled the real estate more and had the door fixed like I wanted would Zayden still be here? If I had stayed up just another hour could I have saved him? Could I have traded my life for his? I should have let him sleep with me that night instead of helping him settle in his own cot.
The list is vicious and repetitive. But all comes back to — why my son? Why us?
What did I do that could possibly even begin to explain the pain I feel daily?
I am lucky in the fact I have support and love all around me.
To pick me up especially on darker days when the guilt that should be felt by his murderer clouds my rationality.
They are the helping hands to pull me out of the storms without them I couldn’t stand like I am today.
I’m told often how courageous and strong I am — but really I do not feel that way at all.
Since this nightmare begun I lost a huge piece of myself.
I have spend the last two plus years searching for that bit humanity, that feeling of joy in its rawest form — but to this day it hasn’t been found.
I truly belive a piece of my died with you that day.
But it is my mission to honour you,
To honour your memory,
Even with the missing parts of me.
I am honoured and truly blessed that my guardian angel chose me to be his mummy.
As I jump from that plane I will be thinking nothing more; nothing less
Than of you my sweet angel
My love will soar to you in heaven.
I love you so dearly
And miss you every second of every day. xx
Love mummy.
If you want to donate to Zayden’s Army, you can find out more at www.facebook.com/zaydensarmy
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