Tuesday, November 01, 2022

RIP Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher 28 December 1985 - 1 November 2007

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A John Kercher Essay About Meredith

We are moving back to commemorating Meredith on this day, not her birthday, as Perugia among other communities remember her today. In 2010 her father and best friend John published this moving essay in the UK’s magazine “Hello”.

John Kercher Remembers His Daughter Meredith, Who Has Come To Affect So Many

It is now three years since Meredith was taken from us in such a brutal and savage way. For such a kind, loving and caring person to suffer what she did is beyond cruel.

The three years since her passing have obviously been very painful to us and are something that is obviously going to stay with us forever. But as her sister Stephanie says, we are fortunate to have 21 years of wonderful memories of her.

On the third. anniversary .of her death in early November, we shall go to the cemetery where she is buried in South London and join many of Meredith’s friends to lay flowers and messages. Many of those friends still write notes to her, as if she were still with us all.

They remind her of the wonderful times that they spent together and share experiences with her. The messages are always left there, because they hope that, in some way, Meredith might be able to read the words.

There is still a cap on the grave, similar to one she wore when she worked as a tourist guide in London, a student job before she left to study in Italy. She took visitors around the capital each day, explaining the various sights and landmarks to them.

Everyone who Meredith ever came into contact with will never forget her and her wonderful smile. They always wanted her as a friend for life.

Even those she never met are struck by her. The Internet is full of messages from strangers around the world who comment on what a lovely person she seemed to be and always remark on her smile.

And that is what always sticks in our mind, because Meredith had a beautiful sense of humour and what some of her friends have described as “wicked one-liners”.

There are memories of Meredith everywhere. At the house in Surrey where she lived with her mother during. her holidays from the University of Leeds, her room is still as it was when she left to .go and study in the Italian city of Perugia to improve her knowledge of the language and culture.

As her mother says, it is not a shrine, but no one wants to disturb anything. Her clothes are still in the wardrobe, her posters on the wall and make-up on her table. It is sad, and you think that some day she is going to return.

You wait to bear her laugh, and whenever I think of that laugh it always makes me smile.

There is a restaurant which she sometimes worked in at weekends when she came back from Leeds, to earn some money for her university studies. They still have a photograph of her on the bar..

At her old school, there is a cherry tree planted in the gardens in her memory, and this year flowers were laid at its foot. There is also an oak tree for her in the grounds of the University of Leeds.

About 40 of her university friends and our family gathered there on the first anniversary of her passing to say prayers and release balloons with messages attached to them in to the sky.

Other trees in Yorkshire have been dedicated to her, and I once joked that soon she would have an entire forest in her name. It is the kind of joke she would have appreciated.

People also always remember Meredith’s kindness and caring nature. She never gave the impression of being studious, but she was, and she worked really hard for her degree.

Several girls have commented that they were stunned how she would often share her lecture notes with them, which most students really guard. It’s amazing that she was able to do that, because she was a notoriously bad timekeeper and was always 20 minutes late for everything.

The last time I saw her, when she had made a weekend trip back from Italy, she made an appointment to meet me at an Italian restaurant in our home town of Coulsdon, Surrey, and was an hour late.

But you could always be forgiving, the moment you saw her smile. On that last occasion 1 saw her, she was showing me some boots which she had bought in London to take back for the Italian winter.

I think that one of the saddest things was when we, as a family, traveled to Italy to give our own testimonies about Meredith to the court. After two years, we were finally told that we could take her possessions home with us.

We knew that she had some wonderful clothes, a lot of special chocolate bought at Perugia’s famous chocolate festival, and an opera calendar that she had bought for her mother’s birthday, for which she was due to travel home.

I expected this large suitcase full of her belongings, but it was sad to be presented with only a small battered case. There were hardly any clothes, most having been destroyed during forensic testing, no calendar and no chocolate. I would have kept mine forever.

She was almost a Christmas baby, born on 28 December, and I think. that she was always, as she got older, a bit peeved that no one could manage a dinner out after all the Christmas eating. We had to arrange something later in the new year for her.

But we did celebrate her 21st in a local Italian, never dreaming that it would be her last. We still celebrate her birthday and always shall. We have a meal and we raise a glass of wine to her,. and leave birthday cards for her at the cemetery.

We have to. She meant so much to us all

An American TV network is now making a film about .Amanda Knox. and the events. That’s something I find appalling.  Your imagination of the events is enough. To have it graphically portrayed would be horrible for us.

I shall never forget sitting in that courtroom in Perugia at midnight, as the sentences for Amanda and [her ex-boyfriend and co—accused] Rafael Sollecito were read out a year ago. It was solemn and the atmosphere was extremely tense.

As we said afterwards, it was not a moment for celebration for us - more one of satisfaction that justice had been done for Meredith. But still it all goes on, with the accuseds’ appeals being heard this month.

If their sentences are upheld, they have the right to appeal to the Supreme Court in Rome and that process can last years. It simply keeps up the pressure on me and all I want is for everything to be settled.

But l know that the world is never going to forget Meredith. Even in passing she has changed so many lives.

Posted by Our Main Posters on 11/01/22 at 02:51 AM in

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