Hannah Gilroy was travelling across south America when she had a phone call from home that was about to change her life forever.
Far away from home and 14 months into a travel adventure of a lifetime she had just stepped off a ship in Antarctica when she received a call from her dad.
It was a moment where time stood still and Hannah, from West Cross in Swansea , vividly remembers the moment on May 4, 2024, when she received news no family member ever wants to receive.
Her beloved brother, Owen Gilroy, who had moved to live in Doncaster where he worked as a project manager for the local council, had tragically died after being involved in a road traffic collision while travelling on the motorway the day before.
He had been travelling to visit a friend having completed his university master’s degree the day before and not long having marked his 40th birthday.
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"I have never felt emptiness like it," Hannah, 33, said.
"When a person you have never lived without is no longer there there isn’t a minute that goes by where your heart, mind, and body doesn’t feel it.
It threw my whole world into a dark chaos and I’ve been trying to make sense of it ever since.
"There will be an Owen-sized hole left in my life, an emptiness I cannot fill, a voice I'll never hear, a bear hug I'll never feel, a brother I’ll always miss.
Our big brother, one of four, forever.
"Owen was a legend in his own right.
A warrior, a barbarian, a big cuddly brute.
He was a 6ft 2in hulk whose voice echoed through rooms, bellowed through your ears, and was enough to shake anyone up but who said ' sister ' softer than a kitten.
"He was insanely intelligent, a linguistic genius, witty, talented, funny.
Big, bold, uncompromising, and often misunderstood.
"He was the best chef and ruined restaurants for me.
Why would I go and spend money to eat somewhere when his food was 10 times better? "One of his favourite places on the planet was Rhossili.
He found comfort in nature.
He liked motorbikes and gardening but couldn’t do anything 'standard' – he would set up flowerbeds like they were MI5 operations with defences and self-watering systems.
"I’ll never know how to say goodbye to him – none of us will.
But I remember him by walking the Welsh coast or every time I eat great food.
"He would be an uncle now to my little sister’s baby and I know he would be amazing with him.
I imagine them together." Hannah said before her brother's life was cut short in the tragic accident he had faced battles with mental ill health during his life which he fought with "strength and resilience." She said: "He had been through so much, and he....
