DESPITE the sudden death of her beloved husband Peter, great-grandmother Petal Hawkins was doing her best to move on, already making new friends and brainstorming ideas for her garden.
Yet the 79-year-old's plans to rebuild were cut tragically short last week when she was killed instantly in a head-on road crash in Writtle, a little over a mile from her home.
Her two devastated children, now left to hurriedly rearrange funeral preparations, have paid tribute to their parents following the double tragedy.
"The whole enormity of it all hasn't really sunk in," said 51-year-old daughter Velda Curry, of Chelmsford. "It's unbelievable. People use that word a lot but it really is shocking.
"I've not come to terms with it and I'm on automatic pilot, and the whole family is not yet gripping the situation so soon after losing dad."
Petal, who worked at the Essex Chronicle for 27 years, was driving back home from a friend's funeral in London when her Kia Picanto collided with another woman's blue Ford Focus on the A414 Ongar Road shortly after 4.10pm on Tuesday last week.
The second woman was airlifted to Royal London Hospital and Petal's family believe she was discharged later that night.
"My mum shouldn't be dead because she was so full of vitality," said Velda.
"Obviously she was in a state of mourning but her health was good. We thought she'd live past 100."
Walthamstow-born Petal was 18 when she met Peter Hawkins at a ballroom dance, soon marrying in 1956, and then settling down with family in Millfields, Writtle, in 1966.
While Peter worked as an insurance sales manager, Petal joined the Chronicle as an editorial secretary, becoming famed outside of the office for her work organising a travel club for as many as 6,000 readers and masterminding the paper's Mrs Chelmsford competition.
"She loved working there," said Velda, who recalls how Petal journeyed to as far as Greece and Yugoslavia with readers.
"We would walk down High Street shopping and people I didn't know would say 'hello, Petal' and she'd say hello back in her very jovial way.
"I would ask 'who is that?' and she would say 'I don't know' or 'that's Margaret, we pick her up from such and such bus stop'."
Outside of work the couple were known at the indoor bowls club at Latchingdon, at Writtle's bowls club and among members of Chelmsford's Tindal Round Table, and continued to be after Petal's retirement on her 62nd birthday in January 1997.
The two moved to Macmillan Court in Godfrey Mews, just a five-minute walk from their daughter, on May 1 after Peter suffered a fall walking out of a restaurant in Margaretting, fracturing his knee cap. Peter, a keen cyclist, tennis player and carpenter, never recovered and died from multiple organ failure, caused by what was diagnosed after his death as Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.
Velda said: "He was a fantastic dad.
"He was a great supporter of all his family, of both mum and us. He was a happy guy of a very cheerful disposition."
The couple's son, John, 49, recalled how Petal whispered her final loving messages into Peter's ear just before he passed away in Broomfield Hospital on Monday, June 16.
"He just waited for her to say that and he went, that's all he needed to hear," he said.
After Petal's death, the family has been inundated with sympathy and supportive messages from friends.
"We are extremely grateful and very comforted by the kindness that people are showing," said Velda.
Both were able to meet their great grandchild Callum, now eight months old.
"My own consolation is they were not meant to be apart," said daughter Velda.
"As tragic and as dreadful as it has been, they're at least together now."
Former Chronicle reporter Anne Fitzgerald said: "Petal was an unforgettable lady who lived up to her beautiful name and brought light into the lives of all those who met her.
"In a buzzing newsroom, Petal was the pivotal point for us all, keeping editors and their diaries under control and keeping track of reporters.
"She was so well known to readers that her name became synonymous with the Chronicle.
"Her positive outlook and zest for life were a real inspiration. She and Peter were a golden couple and they will be very much missed."
