Friends Seek Help to Raise Cash for Headstone
LOVED ones of a Melbourne woman tragically killed when she was hit by a car while trying to save a stray dog are pleading for help to erect a memorial stone at her gravesite.
It has been more than four years since bride-to-be Magdalena Leska died on the Melton Hwy while trying to move a German shepherd to safety, yet her overgrown gravesite remains marked only by pile of stones and a flower arrangement laid by her mother, Jolanta.
Mrs Leska, says she would like to install a “nice headstone”, but can’t afford to do so.
“I feel like I’ve let her down because I can’t do what she deserves,” Mrs Leska said.
The Melton mum said she, her son Konrad, 34, and daughter Anetka, 18, were still struggling with the 26-year-old’s death, and a fitting gravesite would give them “peace of mind”.
In an effort to help Mrs Leska, Magdalena’s closest friends have banded together to raise money for a headstone.
Matthew Pollard, who had known ‘Magda’ since she was 18, said they had been able to pool almost $2500, but still did not have the funds to give her the resting place she deserved.
“If she was here to see someone else go through that, she would sell everything she had to help,” another longtime friend Jay Lal said.
Jacky Komadina, who flies from Sydney to pay her respects at Magdalena’s grave twice a year, said the site was marked only by a broken wooden cross and did not even bear her friend’s name the last time she visited in January.
“It was a massive shock — it looked like somebody has kicked (the cross) off,” she said.
Ms Komadina said Magdalena had heartbreakingly just found happiness before she was killed in April 2010, getting engaged to a man who “adored her”.
Keilor Downs man Aaron Mason, 31, is due to face court this month on charges of exceeding the speed limit and failing to render assistance following a fatal collision over the crash that killed Madgalena. He was initially charged dangerous driving causing death, but was acquitted.
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