Sue was so close to her ‘out there’ daughter that she absorbed all the hits that were part of Danielle’s frustration with her illness. Recalling a classic mother-and-daughter closeness in all its joy and pain, Sue says her one consolation is that she held her child in birth and in death.
Since her working-class upbringing, with its manners and values but only the bare necessities, Sue Alberti’s name has become synonymous with wealth and patronage. But her renown as a businesswoman and philanthropist are of less note to her family than her devotion to her only child. Sue’s niece Lana describes her aunt’s proudest role: ‘Despite her remarkable achievements, Auntie Sue was first and foremost a mother. Auntie Sue would do anything for her daughter’. Lana recognises how, despite Danielle’s death, Sue did not give up on her quest to find a cure for diabetes: ‘In fact, she put the accelerator pedal down and became even more determined … I know how proud Danielle would be of Auntie Sue today. Through all of the hardships she’s endured, when others would have said, “This is all too hard”, Auntie Sue has never given up. She is a true go-getter. Never someone who watches things happen, she makes things happen’.
Ita Buttrose considers Sue a ‘powerhouse’, noting Sue’s comfort in her own skin: ‘She’s not jealous of people who are competent. She’s keen to encourage them because she’s comfortable. She knows who she is’. Victorian Governor Linda Dessau takes it a step further: ‘That’s part of her generosity of spirit. She sees the goodness in other people—she seizes upon it and she helps develop it. And for her to have the generosity of spirit that she has and to give so much, after everything she’s endured, is remarkable. She has an extraordinary resilience’.
Colin North wants to make a strong point about Sue’s resilience. ‘Losing your only child, it doesn’t get any worse than that’, he says with focused intent. ‘Living with the loss of a child is something you live with forever. You never get over it. And in Sue’s case there are so many horrific and confronting elements to process about her daughter’s death. What was the impact of being with Danielle on the plane for nine hours after she’d passed? How different would the experience have been for Sue if they were in a hospital setting?’
Colin says that whenever he and Sue step onto a Qantas plane, it seems that ‘a lot of people know about what happened to Sue and Danielle. There is a warmth. Something touched them really deeply about that incident and about Sue’. Indeed, Wayne Mead, one of the small team of flight attendants on that plane in 2001, has never forgotten about it. Some years later, he saw Sue again when he was working on an LA–Melbourne flight: ‘I reintroduced myself and said hello … Mrs Alberti was so lovely and then she said, “Do you realise it is seven years ago to this very day?” That was an uncanny coincidence’.
Colin reiterates his wife’s phenomenal strength: ‘She has an absolute determination not to let the circumstances beat her, to tell herself that she can deal with this. Yes, she has compartmentalised Danielle’s death—in a way that means she is able to keep it there and not forget. She has managed to keep the link with Danielle but still be able to live a life’.
13 June 2001. There was just a low hum and the sound of air rushing past, which became a dull, numb ache in the ears. Forgetting to swallow created a painful pressure. The slight shakes were a reminder the aircraft was sliding, suspended in the air, supported by nothing. On this journey, there were no tracks, no road, no guide.
There were muted cabin noises—belts clicking, the occasional cough or sniff, rustling packages and wrappers, muffled voices. There were sympathetic stewards, helpful but limited by what was available onboard.
In this isolation, there was only the knowledge that at some point, the huge metal aircraft would land on a bitumen runway. That was the best she could hope for, the inevitable solid, bumping reality as the plane kissed the ground and slid back onto hard earth.
But for now, there was only her daughter’s shape, stretched out under a blanket.
‘I kept looking at her for the next nine hours’, says Sue. ‘I couldn’t believe it. I was thinking, “Did I do this? Did I cause this? Could I have done more to prevent this? A mother is supposed to protect her child. Did I protect her enough?” I just questioned myself for the next nine hours. “Was I a good enough mother? Maybe I should have stayed in the States? What more could I have done? I should have done more.” I just questioned myself over and over again … It was a long time. Endless questioning’. Sue adds: ‘I did that for years’.
This tragedy is the driving force of Sue’s quest, to make sure no-one else goes through what she did: ‘When Danielle died, it was the worst moment of my life. She was my best friend, my child, my daughter. I made that promise. I was not going to let her die in vain. And I have devoted my life to that promise’.