Meredith Gaudreau Details Moment She Learned Husband Johnny Died In Heartbreaking Open Letter

In an emotional letter published Thursday, June 12, on the Players’ Tribune — nearly one year after their death — Meredith reflected on the moment she found out Johnny had passed. The Gaudreau brothers had been helping prepare for their younger sister Katie’s wedding at the time of the tragedy.

“You kissed all of us goodbye and said you’d see us later. And that was that,” she recalled. “Katie called, and she said something had happened but she didn’t know what exactly. 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. And then I walked up the front porch and learned the absolute worst had happened and that it was both of you.”

“I was in shock. I was keeled over for days sick to my stomach,” she wrote. “It’s completely indescribable. The only person who can relate to me is my own sister-in-law. I see her and my heart breaks for her.”

Johnny was 31 and Matthew, 29, when a drunk driver, Sean Higgins, allegedly struck and killed them near their hometown. Higgins now faces six charges, including aggravated manslaughter and reckless vehicular homicide. He has pleaded not guilty.

The event was postponed and is now planned for July 2025.

“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,” Meredith, who was pregnant with the couple’s third child at the time, shared. “It was weird and it was awful. I had to go to the doctor for our third baby. The first of my appointments where you weren’t holding my hand.”

Meredith and Johnny shared daughter Noa, 2, and son Johnny Jr., who was just 15 months old when his father died. Meredith later welcomed their third child, son Carter, in April. Matthew and his wife, Madeline, were also expecting their first child at the time.

“I looked at Noa and baby Johnny and I felt a pain that I hadn’t felt before,” she wrote. “Our two babies who have to grow up without their dad, without their amazing uncle.”

She described the crushing weight of grief that followed, writing that it got so bad, she could hardly stand up.

“I thought of our baby inside of me. I couldn’t stand up,” she admitted. “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. And in an instant, I missed you more than I knew was possible.”

Despite the sorrow, Meredith said the support from the hockey world brought her some comfort. Johnny’s former team, the Columbus Blue Jackets, honored him before their first preseason game of the 2024–25 season, and players wore helmet stickers with doves and the numbers 13 (Johnny) and 21 (Matthew, who played for Boston College) on them. Patches were also added to jerseys at the start of the regular season.

“The hockey world, the sports world, they showed up for us, too,” she wrote. “To see people go from just knowing about ‘Johnny Hockey,’ to hearing about how amazing of a father you were, of a person you were? I know that’s what would have mattered to you.”