Life After Lauren

When their 24-year-old daughter died in her sleep, Toronto radio host Erin Davis and her husband began the long process of rebuilding their life, and trying to find joy in it again

- Erin Davis

This trip was starting out as many others had: my husband, Rob, and I, together with my immediate radio team, had landed safely in Jamaica, been transferred smoothly to a beautiful, lush resort and were welcomed like VIPs. By the following night, May 10, 2015, we’d greeted our listeners with cool towels, cocktails and a cake that had “Happy Mother’s Day” written on it in icing. We’d shared time at the microphone introducing ourselves and our staff and expressing our hopes that our guests would join us at 6 o’clock the next morning for the show that was being broadcast back to Toronto. Rob and I had dinner at a teppanyaki restaurant where the chef splattered me with hot oil while flipping his utensils. It’s funny the things you remember from those benign moments before your life changes forever.

At the time that my son-in-law, Phil, was trying to wake Lauren and then frantically calling 911, Rob and I were trying to get a few more hours’ sleep before one of the more stressful aspects of my job: doing a live radio show from a foreign country in a hotel ballroom filled with 50 or 60 contest winners. Deep into preparation mode, I barely noticed when our lead promotions staffer, Jackie Gilgannon, approached with a concerned look on her face.

“There’s a Patricia somebody on the phone from Toronto who wants to talk to you,” she said in a vaguely confused voice.