KEY POINTS:
Seven-week-old Glacia Brown was buried on Friday. So was her grandmother, Sandra Newport.
Sandra's daughter, Glacia's mother Kimberley, doesn't know either are dead. That's the news she will awake to when - and if - she comes out of the coma that she has been in for the
past six days.
Her partner, Glacia's father 24-year-old Ray Brown, is still struggling to make sense of the car crash on Monday near Whakatane that ended both their lives. "She [Kimberley] has no idea of anything and I am hoping and praying that she pulls through," Brown told the Herald on Sunday.
While there has been no official cause given so far for the accident, it appears that somehow Kimberley, 20, might have lost control of her vehicle before sliding on a patch of gravel and into the path of an oncoming 4WD on Blueberry Corner, a notorious stretch of highway.
Sandra and Glacia died at the scene, while Kimberley was airlifted to Waikato Hospital. Last night, she remained there, in a coma clinging to life. "She's hanging in there, stable - but that's all. She's a fighter... a real tough girl," Brown said.
He isn't sure how he'll break the news to Kimberley that her mother and baby daughter are gone. "For my partner and I, Glacia was just a rock to us, she was everything good in me. She was everything I could have ever asked for."
Apart from dealing with the grief of losing two loved ones, Brown knows Kimberley will be feeling enormously guilty over what has happened.
"You can't prepare for something like that. I just know whatever I say she's going to be broken. The baby was just her life. We were the proudest parents, and Kim just loved being a mum. That's all she ever wanted," he said.
"All I can do now is be there for her. This could have happened to anyone. You hear about this sort of thing on the news, but never do you imagine something like this happening to you. The whole thing is so cruel.
"For me, the reality of what has happened is starting to sink in. But it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. All I can focus on now is being there for Kim."
The past few days, he said, had just been a blur. He remembers how just a week ago they were enjoying their new role as parents to Glacia. Life wasn't grand by any stretch of the imagination, but they were content in their small home in central Whakatane.
"Once we had our baby it gave our relationship real foundation. As a couple we were so strong," Brown said.
They had plans for a wedding next year - and maybe more children in the future.
Brown remembers the morning of the day of the accident.
Kimberley had left Whakatane with her father Reg, Glacia and her grandmother Sandra, 49, for a dental appointment in Matata.
Brown had been expecting they'd be back that night in time for dinner, but they never arrived.
When he got the news panic set in.
"Even now the whole thing doesn't seem real. It's just so crazy," he said.
If Kimberley does pull through, Brown expects there will be the usual questions - the hows and the whys.
He says as far as he is concerned there is no point in trying to lay blame with anyone.
"All I know is that she is all I have left now."
Kimberley and Ray met three-years-ago, during a night out on the town in the Eastern Bay of Plenty town of Whakatane.
There was an instant attraction.
The relationship quickly blossomed and seven weeks ago the couple had their first child, affectionately nicknamed Spongie and Chub Chub.
Police said yesterday that an investigation into the crash was continuing and no decision about laying charges would be made until Kimberley was interviewed and recovered.
The occupants of the 4WD escaped the accident unhurt.
