Inked For Eternity Brave Widow's Moving Tribute

As her hubby lay dying, Calli fulfilled his last wish

- Julie Jacobson

Theirs was a love story straight from the pages of a romance novel. Calli Cleland was just 15 when she met husband to-be Daniel Kopa at the Papakura High School fifth form school ball. He was 17.

Over the next 17 years, they would date, marry, build their first home together and have four gorgeous little girls, Harper, five, Zoey, two, and eight-month-old twins Charli and Eden.

But heart-breakingly, the future they had planned was cut short when Dann was hit crossing Hobson Street in Auckland on the morning of June 7. Unresponsive, the 34-year-old went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to Auckland Hospital in a critical condition.

“I was told about 9.45 that morning,” Calli recalls, still struggling to come to terms with the loss of her beloved husband. “I was yelling and screaming. I called my mum who lives down the road. She was here within minutes. We threw the twins in the car seat and that was it …”

It would be two days before Calli, a nurse and still on maternity leave after the birth of the twins last September, would make the agonising decision to turn off her soul mate’s life support. They were precious last days. The young mum lay beside her husband – “I just wanted to be close” – and his daughters were in his arms when he died.

At Calli’s request, a tattooist travelled to the hospital to ink a footprint of one of their daughters on Dann’s chest to go with one he already had, along with the names of the twins. “The tattoos were for him and they were for the girls – to know they’re part of him forever,” explains Calli, 32.

Daily ritual