Meredith Gaudreau, the widow of NHL star Johnny Gaudreau, has penned a heartbreaking essay for Player’s Tribune that details the devastating moment she learned her husband died.
Johnny Gaudreau 31, who played for the Columbus Blue Jackets, and his younger brother, Matthew Gaudreau, 29, were killed in August 2024 after an alleged drunk driver crashed into them as they were riding bicycles in their New Jersey hometown.
In her essay, which was written in the style of an open letter to her late husband, Meredith Gaudreau revealed that the brothers’ death on Aug. 29, 2024 came a week after she told her husband she was secretly pregnant with their third child, Carter, now 2 months old.
“In my head I couldn’t believe we were about to have three kids under 3. It seemed like so much for us to handle. I was scared,” she wrote. “But your face, John. Your face in that moment told me all I needed to know: that it was going to be OK. That we were going to be the best little team ever.”
The day of her husband’s death, which was also the four-year anniversary of the day the couple got engaged, started out on a high note. Meredith Gaudreau recalled that the pro hockey star made breakfast for their two older children, daughter Noa, now 2, and son Johnny, now 1, as she slept in.
“I walked into the kitchen and said, ‘Hey, today’s the day. August 29. Four years ago.’ Four years since the day you’d gotten down on one knee and asked one more question,” she wrote.
“It was going to be a great day,” she added, noting that the couple would be attending her sister-in-law Katie Gaudreau‘s wedding on Aug. 30.
“You were heading out to play golf with Matthew and all the groomsmen. You had our car packed to the brim in perfect Tetris fashion. Things for the wedding, things for Columbus, things for Johnny’s christening.
“You kissed all of us goodbye and said you’d see us later. And that was that,” she wrote.
Hours later, the idyllic morning turned into a nightmare.
“Katie called, and she said something had happened but she didn’t know what exactly,” Meredith Gaudreau wrote.
“My dad drove me over to your parents’, and I was thinking the whole time about how I was going to help you through whatever it could be that had happened to Matty,” she wrote of her brother-in-law, whose wife, Madeline Gaudreau, was also pregnant at the time.
“And then I walked up the front porch and learned the absolute worst had happened and that it was both of you,” she wrote.
“There aren’t any words to go here,” she added.
She recalled that her initial response after hearing the news was a “shock” that was “indescribable.” Then, she was “keeled over” and sick to her stomach” for days, she wrote.
“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,” she wrote.
“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. It’s just the worst thing I could have ever imagined,” she wrote. “And in an instant, I missed you more than I knew was possible. And I haven’t stopped missing you since.”
“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,” she wrote.
Near the end of her letter, Meredith Gaudreau expressed her appreciation for her family and the sports community for all the love and support they gave to her and Madeline Gaudreau during the worst days of their lives.
She also told her late husband how much she admired him as a man, a partner and a father. “You were perfect,“ she wrote. “I don’t know how you could have ever been better.”
She added that she felt “lucky” that all three of their children — including baby Carter, the son her late husband never had the chance to meet — inherited his best qualities.
Meredith Gaudreau concluded her emotional essay by wishing her late husband a “Happy first Father’s Day as a father of three!”
“Thank you for the very best years of my life,” she wrote. “Thank you for making us a family. Thank you for being my best friend, my favorite person, the man of my dreams.”