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IN March this year, 40 of the people Georgia Edsall-French loved most gathered at her Heathcote home to celebrate her 16th birthday.
The pergola area at the rear of the home was decorated in the Bendigo South East College student’s favourite colour, purple, and those gathered each shared something they loved about the birthday girl, with her contagious laugh and her caring nature coming up as two of the attributes that had endeared her to so many.
But Georgia herself couldn’t be there.
Several months before, her life had been suddenly, tragically cut short in a car crash in north Queensland.
Georgia, her mum Kym Edsall and two of her little sisters, Lily and Matilda, had taken a road trip up north and were driving along the Bruce Highway at Bowen, returning from the supermarket, when their car was involved in a head-on crash with another vehicle on July 24, 2015.
Georgia was killed instantly from the impact.
Matilda, now 9, suffered multiple fractures in her legs, which in the end will require 16 operations to treat.
Ms Edsall had sustained injuries to her braking foot, while Lily, 11, escaped relatively unscathed.
Georgia’s dad Terry French and her other two sisters, Tayla, 19, and Grace, 13, were in Victoria when they received the distressing news that was to change their lives forever.
Today there is a bright, airy area in the family home with big windows that look out onto the backyard, where dozens of photos of Georgia taken throughout her too-short life are stuck to the walls and sit in frames along the windowsills.
While Georgia cannot be with her family physically, she is no less a part of their lives now than before.
“We’re so fortunate, we don’t need to try to keep Georgia’s memory alive, she’s just with us,” Ms Edsall said.
On her birthday last year, about two months after the crash, she discovered that bulbs she and Georgia had planted had come up in blooms of purple – Georgia’s favourite colour.
“Best bunch of flowers I’ve ever been given,” she said.
After the crash she also discovered a playlist Georgia had put on her phone was comprised entirely of songs of Australian musician Vance Joy, with one exception – INXS’s Beautiful Girl.
In the mornings Tayla opens the blinds in her younger sister’s room and each night closes them again.
Sometimes Georgia’s friends will visit the home and spend time in her room, to feel close to her.
“We’re fortunate that Georgia, being such a beautiful person … she attracted beautiful people and I’m … still allowed to be in their lives,” Ms Edsall said.
She describes her daughter as “just unbelievable” with a “heart of gold”.
“She had this infectious laughter, she could make anybody smile, and she was full of empathy, she was an advocate,” she said.
She was interested in social justice issues and cared about other people.
Ms Edsall said her daughter rarely had a bad word to say about anyone and endeavoured to brighten the days of the people she encountered in her life.
“In the weeks after the crash, I just kept saying ... ‘I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming’,” she said.
“I could not believe I didn’t see this coming. I should’ve known she was on loan, she was just too good for this world.”
Georgia also loved music and playing the guitar, and even wrote her own songs.
She was also a keen netballer, playing for Heathcote, and played soccer for her school.
After her death, her netball teammates gifted her family a canvas with their messages to Georgia and a framed poster of encouraging posts she wrote on her team’s Facebook page, another example of her sunny, optimistic nature.
“Georgia had a saying, and I guess it’s her legacy … ‘Just wing it, and if your wings break, just leg it’,” Ms Edsall said.
The crash and the loss of Georgia have had a profound and heartbreaking impact on the family.
Ms Edsall said her two youngest daughters were “very resilient”, but still had nightmares and were frightened when their mother drove.
“When children go through anything traumatic - this is my view - it breaks their innocence,” she said.
“And for the girls now, bad things can happen.
“‘Mum be careful driving to your appointment in Melbourne’. They say goodbye to me like it’s the last time they’re going to see me.”
She said Georgia’s death hastened the decline of her grandmothers, who had dementia, and Mr French had also experienced health problems in the aftermath.
Grace started high school this year, which Ms Edsall said was tough for her, being known as Georgia’s sister.
“It’s surreal. It’s just surreal,” she said.
“We’re all different people. I know I’m a different person.”
It is not only her family who have been hit hard – the loss of Georgia has been felt in both Heathcote and Bendigo.
Footage from the Heathcote District Football-Netball League’s Georgia Edsall-French Memorial Game in July
“There’s a pain that stays with your community, I think,” Bendigo South East College principal Ernie Fleming said.
Mr Fleming spoke of the size of the grief that followed the loss of someone he described as a “positive, bubbly, friendly kid”.
“Every kid that knew her thought of her as a friend,” Mr Fleming said.
Her good friend Emily Churchill said it had been hard to go from spending every day with her to not seeing her at all, and knowing their other friends were experiencing the same grief.
Emily said Georgia’s laugh was always what sprung to mind when she thought of her “bright, happy and fun” friend.
“(She was) always laughing – whenever she was laughing, everybody else would be laughing,” she said.
Ms Edsall wants people to remember driving is a privilege, not a right, and to concentrate at all times.
She is all too aware of the fact that it takes only a moment for something irreversible to occur.
“Our last family photo was in the funeral home, and no one should have to do that,” Ms Edsall said.