Meredith Gaudreau wrote a shattering letter to her late husband, Johnny, who died nearly a year ago in a tragic accident.
Johnny, a star for the Blue Jackets, was struck and killed by an alleged drunk alongside his brother, Matthew, as they biked home the day before their sister Katie’s wedding in August 2024.
Meredith’s letter, titled “Thank You For Being Perfect, John,” was published by The Players’ Tribune Thursday. She shared many major moments of her and Johnny’s story together.
With the wedding being the next day, Meredith noted that they had a busy agenda — but that “it was going to be a great day.”
“You kissed all of us goodbye and said you’d see us later. And that was that,” she wrote.
Then the disaster struck.
“Katie called, and she said something had happened, but she didn’t know what exactly,” Meredith recalled. “I was thinking the whole time about how I was going to help you through whatever it could be that had happened to Matty. And then I walked up the front porch and learned the absolute worst had happened and that it was both of you.
“There aren’t any words to go here.”
A weekend that was supposed to be beautiful for the entire family had turned into just the opposite.
Meredith was shocked, her feelings “completely indescribable.”
“I was keeled over for days, sick to my stomach,” she said. “The only person who can relate to me is my own sister-in-law. I see her and my heart breaks for her. I’m sick for her. We had just celebrated their gender reveal. We were all just down the shore together and had so much fun. Matty made me laugh so much that weekend.”
Meredith and Johnny had two children at the time, Noa and Johnny, with a third on the way.
“I thought of our baby inside of me. I couldn’t stand up. I was awake and having nightmares. Thinking of you in that moment. Thinking of Matty,” Meredith said. “It’s just the worst thing I could have ever imagined. And in an instant, I missed you more than I knew was possible. And I haven’t stopped missing you since.”
The “feeling never goes away,” Meredith said.
“I love you so much. I miss you every second of every day. I miss you more and more every day as well. My love grows deeper for you each day too.”
The entire family’s world had been flipped upside down in the most horrific of ways.
“To go from getting ready for a beautiful wedding all week with your sister, to being in a funeral home with Madeline trying to figure all these things out — it just hurt so much,” Meredith said. “It was weird and it was awful. I had to go to the doctor for our third baby. The first of my appointments you were not holding my hand during.
“I looked at Noa and baby Johnny and I felt a pain that I hadn’t felt before. Our two babies who have to grow up without their dad, without their amazing uncle.”
Both the NHL and Meredith have been persistent in honoring Johnny after his death, but the heartbreaking letter is the most crushing of them all.
“I don’t know,” Meredith wrote to Johnny. “What was I supposed to do without you?”