A 3:32am phone call is never a good one.

I had been going to sleep recently with white noise playing and my phone on silent but my Nephew knew how to break through those defenses in seconds.

Phone rings, caller ID states Nephew calling, heart sinks. I knew it before he’d even uttered the unimaginable words through the crying and sobbing and shouting. Oh sweet Jesus! No!! Please!!! Put shorts and a top on and made my way to Mum and Dad’s house to await the visit from the police but it was pointless now. We knew what had happened.

Now the race was on because my other nephew was at University and we couldn’t let him find out this news on his own. We had to be there with him. Once the formalities of the police visit concluded the plan was:-

• • Find nephew one

• • Drive to Nephew two’s university

• • Break the worst news possible to him in person

• • Bring them both back to their Grandparents

• • Breathe!!!!

It all happened pretty uneventfully in the end. We acheived everything on the list. One terrible car journey, one horrendous piece of news communicated, another unthinkable car journey. Home.