Sue braces herself before she speaks about those hours on a plane on 13 June 2001. Weeks have been spent circling this conversation. Her team has repeatedly cautioned, ‘Sue is very, very private’, and this is about as personal as any discussion is ever going to get. Now, with her usual upright posture, knees together but legs uncrossed, she faces the table squarely. The shoulders of her cream Carla Zampatti jacket are as structured as the fabric is soft, and the gold buttons glint in the window-filtered sunlight.
‘When I was given the green light to take Danielle home,’ says Sue, ‘I was extremely confident that we were going to get there. The doctors had given us the okay. I was confident that she was going to get my kidney, she was excited about her new life. That’s really what got her up and moving’. Sue says she tried as hard as possible to make Danielle comfortable for the flight home, on a Qantas jet bound first for LA followed by a second and final leg to Melbourne. This included organising a wheelchair at the airport. However, there were already signs that it would be a difficult trip. Sue says that while Danielle ‘seemed reasonably good in the lounge’, she was ‘wandering a bit. She wasn’t normal’.
The tragedy unfolded several hours into the LA–Melbourne leg of the flight. ‘We were in first class’, says Sue, ‘and I remember I was sitting on the aisle and she was sitting on the right side … They asked Danielle what she wanted for dinner and she said tomato soup. I thought, “This is strange because she’s not a soup person”. That indicated to me that things were not quite right’. Sue continues: ‘I had all the extra things she needed because being on dialysis you have to have certain drugs and certain things for the salt. I got out her bag of medicine and asked if she wanted to take them. She swore at me, said something she would never, ever say to me. And she threw the bag back at me. I thought, “Oh, things are not right here”’.
Sue says Danielle only had a few sips of soup before putting down her spoon: ‘I was watching her without her knowing I was watching, just to see how things were going. They took Danielle’s tray away and I didn’t have anything to eat. I didn’t feel like anything. I was too busy, a bit too … nervous I suppose. I was keeping an eye on her, just wanted to keep her comfortable and happy. And organised’.
Suddenly, says Sue, Danielle started ripping off her clothes: ‘She said she wanted to put on the pyjamas, the ones they give you in first class. I said, “Darling you don’t need to, you’re fine”. But she took her top off and put the pyjama top on, then she started pulling that up. She said, “Mum, I’m hot”. And she started thrashing around, trying to take off her clothes … I sat by her seat and tried to talk to her. I was trying not to be too intrusive, but I thought I’d take her blood test to see if her blood sugars were high or low. But she was thrashing, not fighting me but moving around. I couldn’t keep her hand still enough to do the test’.
Sue remembers telling the staff, ‘“I think things are not good here. Can you get me one of those breakfast drinks?” I was thinking, if she’s low there will be loads of sugar in one of those smoothie drinks. And by the time they brought it back Danielle had told me she was in pain’.
Sue says Danielle told her, ‘Mum, I’m in terrible pain, can you rub my back?’, which she did. Sue also said to the crew that she needed some medical help: ‘I could tell things were not good, she was not right. They put out the call for help to come to the first-class lounge and there was an anaesthetist from South Australia and a doctor from Melbourne on the plane. By the time they were called and before they got to Danielle’s seat, Danielle had asked me to hold her and to keep rubbing her back’.
Then Danielle’s heart gave out. Sue says, ‘Just before she died, she gurgled. That was her last breath’.
Sue is clinical in her telling of the story, careful to present the facts in a logical sequence. She says she noticed a blue mark down the side of Danielle’s face and across her forehead: ‘The anaesthetist said there was nothing we could do, even in trying to revive her. He took one look at the mark on her face and said she was gone, long gone. As in, it was instant. They couldn’t get her heart going’.
Sue says that even though she knew her daughter was gone, she remained in a slightly robotic state: ‘That’s me. I don’t fall in a heap. I stay focused on what’s going on and don’t show any of my emotion. I just sat there and thought, “Did she really die?” You know, you think they’re going to be okay’.
Sue noticed that a man in the seat in front of her had turned around and was looking over the back of his chair: ‘I deliberately moved my body so he couldn’t see anything. I was really filthy over that. I thought, “It’s none of your business”’. But Sue says the staff on the plane were wonderful: ‘They got me a blanket straightaway to cover her. I wanted Danielle to have her dignity’.
As Danielle was laid flat and covered with a blanket, the doctors went, the staff went, and things settled down. Then, as Sue sat quietly in her seat, reality hit: Danielle was dead. Sue continued to sit there, her mind racing, trying to process what had happened.
The pilot radioed ahead to Melbourne: ‘They were calling Len Harrison and my brother to meet me at the airport’, says Sue. ‘The fact that Len met me meant that we didn’t have to have an autopsy. Danielle hated that her father had an autopsy, hated that he had been cut up … Danielle always expressed to me her dislike of autopsy and I knew that if I could prevent that, even though she was dead, I would fulfil one of her wishes’.
Sue says that when the flight finally landed at Melbourne Airport, Sue’s brother Richard, Len, and Len’s wife Margo were waiting for her. ‘I was still on automatic pilot’, she says. ‘I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. But I didn’t like the undertaker who came on the plane, his attitude: “Another dead body, another deal”. So I asked for another undertaker. I wanted Danielle treated with respect. She deserved better.’
Sue remembers how, as Danielle lay there in the aircraft cabin, under a blanket, she made a promise to her daughter about the disease that had claimed her: ‘I’ll never stop. I’ll never ever give up’.
Having kept the household running in Sue’s absence, and with all the necessary preparations made, Melissa Chavulak was keenly anticipating Danielle’s arrival. She greeted Sue at the door when she arrived home, expectant: ‘I walked up to her, open arms, and gave her a cuddle. She looked at me and said, “You don’t know do you? Danielle just died in my arms on the way home”’. After uttering the hardest words anyone could ever have to say, Sue was spent. Melissa lowers her voice: ‘It was absolutely heartbreaking. Just devastating. She was in shock and completely exhausted. How do you get up again and deal with that?’
Sue retreated into what Melissa describes as a very intense, private and sad period. Her vast network and close friendship group were all distraught on behalf of this vibrant woman who gave so wholeheartedly and so passionately to others. ‘I remember we had maintenance men around the house at the time and they didn’t really know what to do, whether to come or go’, Melissa reflects. ‘Then a huge floral arrangement arrived from them in the afternoon. That’s the sort of impact Sue has. She touches people. Men don’t normally think of sending flowers.’
Sandro was working in the garden in Toorak when Sue arrived home: ‘I didn’t know that she came home. She came around the back and her eyes were like …’ Sandro gestures with rounded fingertips to show large, swollen eyes. ‘I said, “Sue, what’s the matter?” And she told me. I remember I sat near her, I didn’t know what to say. It doesn’t matter what people think …’ His voice trails off. ‘How can you imagine how a mother feels, with her daughter passing away?’
Yet, somehow, Sue picked herself up and carried on. In her trademark style, she just ‘got on with it’. The JDRFA Gala Ball was less than two months away and there was a mountain of work to keep her busy. It struck some people as odd that Sue managed so well after her child’s death, but anyone who knows Sue knows that thinking about her daughter all the time is how she copes.
At points in the conversation, Sue’s face tightens, her eyes lose their sparkle for a moment, and tears are close. Danielle’s death is not something from which Sue will ever ‘recover’, and she is candid about the weeks that followed: ‘First losing Angelo, then losing Danielle, it was all too much. I knew I had to go through another funeral. Call me a coward, but I’d been through too many deaths. I didn’t want to go through another one. I was worried about the staff and everyone around me—how they were going to react. I wanted to remain strong. I had a business to run. The leader couldn’t fall over; the leader has to show a good example. At the funeral, I wanted to remain dignified; it was important that I was strong. That was me, at the cemetery, at the wake afterwards. All the workers were there, they rely on me for their jobs so I had to remain tough’.
Sue says she doesn’t even remember Danielle’s funeral: ‘It was a blur. People came up to me afterwards, to talk about Danielle. She had such a beautiful heart. School friends made a point of telling me what a beautiful person she was. They said she was very caring’.
Danielle is remembered as compassionate and loving by her cousins. Sue’s niece, Lana Jenkings, was close to Danielle and remembers her cousin’s ‘never give up’ attitude and her caring nature: ‘When I visited Danielle in New York, we would head out to dinner and see a live show afterwards. It was winter and I really feel the cold. Auntie Sue and Danielle would always ensure that I was rugged up like a bear to stay warm. We had such fun’.
Lana’s brother, Andrew, turned fifteen the day Danielle died: ‘When I woke up Dad wasn’t there, but I knew from the look on Mum’s face that something was wrong. But they didn’t tell me until late that evening. They allowed me to still enjoy my birthday. When they told me, that initial shock, I’ll never forget. It was a massive moment. The funeral was very sad. I remember Auntie at the funeral, obviously very emotional. She said to me that when they lowered Danielle into the grave was the hardest part’.
Andrew expresses what many others have hinted at: ‘I suspect she cries privately’. He continues: ‘One afternoon a few years ago, I was at Auntie’s place with my partner and Auntie shared the story. She got out the pasta and started cooking. We stayed all afternoon and on for dinner. It was like a healing process for her, telling us about Danielle and what happened on the plane’.
Sue confirms that she does cry, but that she does so in the privacy of her own bedroom. And even privately, she wasn’t able to cry about losing her daughter for a long time afterwards. She was so focused on keeping herself together, maintaining control of the impact she has, worrying about other people. ‘I don’t think I cried for more than twelve months’, she admits.
Sue’s tears for Danielle finally flowed when she opened up to Colin North, who would later become her second husband: ‘I was with Colin after we’d been out to dinner one night. We were sitting talking and … I just cried and cried and let it all out. That’s when I knew he was the right person for me. I knew I could trust him and tell him how I really felt. Colin has a lot of empathy and he also has an only child, so he understood what Danielle meant to me’.
People close to Sue are careful when talking about Danielle, responding most often with ‘That’s something to ask Sue’. It comes from respect for the beautiful, wilful young artist and her vivacious and passionately generous mother, and the unbroken bond between them.
Danielle’s art was exhibited within months of her death, at a gallery in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Richmond. All the work sold within twenty minutes, raising around $100 000 for medical research. Sue remembers, ‘Danielle had organised that before she went to America and I wanted to realise her dream. She had sent her portfolio and they liked it and had her art ready to hang. All the money went to research. That’s what she had wanted’.
Unbeknownst to her parents, Danielle had also set up a scholarship for international students to be given an opportunity to study in Philadelphia. ‘I didn’t find out about the scholarship until the funeral, when Danielle’s executor told me’, Sue notes. ‘It was so typical of her and the way she took on the family values. She was in a position where she could finally give back and had just quietly organised it.’
Mary Tyler Moore sent white flowers when she found out Danielle had died. Sue was deeply touched: ‘I was hardly home with Danielle’s body and Mary was on the phone. After that, she asked her board of directors to contribute $200 000 in Danielle’s name to diabetes research’.
Wayne Mead, Qantas’ customer service manager, was on that flight from Los Angeles and vividly recalls the tragedy and the strength Sue showed in the circumstances: ‘It was so sad, and she was in an almost automatic mode. All of the flight attendants were amazed—it was incredible how dignified and switched on she was. One of the things that affected me a lot was when I learned that Danielle was an only child’. Wayne said he and the other crew members were overwhelmed when Sue thanked them in the obituary notices: ‘That was very touching. She also invited myself, the supervisor and three of the girls from first class to the gallery exhibition of her daughter’s art. I was away at the time but I know people did attend’.
Sue says of the Qantas crew’s appearance at Danielle’s exhibition, ‘I couldn’t believe it. I nearly fell over when I saw they had turned up. That was just amazing. Whenever I have seen those staff on subsequent flights, they always come over to me, always refer to me as Mrs Alberti. They have been so nice to me. I think they were surprised that there were no hysterics, no raging, no screaming. They always comment that I was so dignified. But I was in control mode. That’s me—trying to find a solution’.