Irina Udrea is trying to ignore the fact it is Father’s Day in Malta today: “It’s just another day we have to get through,” she says.

Irina’s “we” used to be an exceptionally blessed family that included her “incredibly intelligent and humorous” husband Dan, and their two baby sons.

Tragically, as many readers may recall, a storm that struck the Maltese Islands over Carnival weekend just a few months ago, saw a tree fall onto the car Irina was travelling in with her husband, killing him instantly.

At that time, Irina was hospitalized and too unwell to respond to newsrooms’ requests but now, four months later, she has chosen to speak to The Malta Independent on Sunday about the events of that fateful morning, and how her family has been managing since.

On 10 February, Irina and Dan had left for work at 6am from their family home in Mosta. The weather was perilous and the storm relentless. The main route the couple usually took to work was closed. Contrary to speculation at the time, that the couple was looking for a petrol station, Irina recalls, “Dan hated sitting around in traffic, he knew all the back roads through his job, we simply took another route to work.”

Irina has a vague recollection of the moment the impact occurred and that she had been involved in a serious incident. She believed at the time that she had been holding Dan’s hand, but emergency staff told her later that she was checking his pulse.

“I didn’t need the hospital staff to tell me he was gone, I knew instantly,” she said.

Three days later hospital staff deemed her well enough to visit him, by which time Mater Dei Hospital staff and the wider community had rallied to find funds to support the repatriation of Dan’s body to their homeland, Romania.

She is extremely thankful for this gesture and wishes to express her sincerest gratitude. Irina spent a few weeks at home in Romania before returning to Malta: “I wanted normality and routine to continue immediately, for the boys’ sake and mine”.

Asked if she felt like leaving the islands, Irina added: “Malta is where we had set up our life, Dan loved Malta, and this is where I feel closest to him.

“Dan had an excellent job at a leading courier company where we both worked. He was doing very well as a logistics manager.”

With no small amount of support from her work colleagues, Irina has now taken up her departed husband’s role at the company: “I understand now why he loved his job so much”.

“The boys are still too young to comprehend what has happened to their father, Oli was just six months old at the time of the accident, Edi is three - he used to ask me ‘When will Daddy come home to fix my toys?’ I am bracing myself for the day when they ask what happened.”

Asked if she felt any sense of bitterness or anger about the accident that claimed her husband’s life, Irina explained that what troubles her most is that every morning they were late for work, usually by around 15 minutes, and Dan would be the one hurriedly ushering her out of the door.

“That fateful morning I woke up early; for once we were out of the door on time.”

Irina also expressed her frustration at seeing the trees in the vicinity being marked to be cut down a week after the accident: “It was too late, and subsequently others have been killed after being hit by trees. Why are the relevant authorities not checking roadside trees before the next winter storms? If they don’t we will just see the same thing happen again.”

Irina doesn’t falter during our meeting. She sits immaculately dressed, composed and articulate.

Photo Domenic Aquilina

“I knew from that very moment I had to be realistic. It is my nature anyway, but survival mode kicked in. My grief is personal, and I feel it is not to be inflicted on others to carry.”

Irina explained that she did not feel comfortable being stereotyped on how grieving widows and bereaved mothers should act or behave: “I have suddenly gained a number of titles I simply cannot relate to.”

To meet Irina is to know how deeply she loved Dan. After 14 years of being together, she speaks fondly of their mutual passion for motorbikes, of the wonderful father he was and shares her personal photographs with us.

Irina’s story is a painful reminder to us all that life can well and truly change in the blink of an eye.