Family of Lui Polimeni still trying to pick up the pieces following tragic death

COME Sunday showing the strength of a small battalion, Jenny Polimeni will go watch the Gundagai Tigers play for the first time since her son Lui fell.

Lui Polimeni passed following a concussion earlier this year.

COME Sunday, showing the strength of a small battalion, Jenny Polimeni will go watch the Gundagai Tigers play for the first time since her son Lui fell.

“I’ve rostered myself on to the canteen to touch base with all the mums,” she says.

“I’m trying to support the boys.”

It is not even two months since Lui, 15, went down in a game against Tumut with a severe concussion and failed to get up.

He was taken to Canberra Hospital and remained on life support for three days before they turned off his machine, sending the family into a fog they are struggling to break free of.

Polimeni passed away earlier this year.

Jenny and Gino own a business supplying fruit and vegetables to seven towns around the Group 9 area but closed their doors immediately after because they could simply no longer find the resolve to begin work at 4am every morning and keep going until the work was all done. Their strength, they soon realised, was needed elsewhere.

“This has flattened us,” Jenny says. They are not sure whether they will ever reopen.

Lui’s younger brother Joey, 13, has still not played again.

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“The first week or so he said I’m still playing,” Jenny says, which is understandable. Like Lui, Joey is tremendously talented. Both boys won their best and fairest awards last season. Joey named the competition’s Player of the Year.

“We asked him to give us some time because he could see we were hurting,” Jenny says.

“We cry day and night.”

Joey still trains with his team.

Gino, Joey, Lui and Jenny Polimeni.

In the days and weeks following Lui’s death one of Lui’s best friends, Kyle, continually knocked on the Polimeni front door.

He would sit down and talk to Jenny and Gino and Joey about Lui, about anything.

“He was suffering,” Jenny says.

“We’ve just been trying to help him out.”

Even in her own grief, Jenny spoke to him about moving on. They had wristbands at the Tigers saying, “Live Like Lui. Play Like Lui”.

Somewhere in all that Jenny was finding a way to do just that.

She encouraged Kyle to do the same.

Her and Gino were seeing a counsellor, hoping the counsellor could somehow fix the ache in their hearts even though they were told from the beginning there was no magic wand.

You don’t bounce back in life, they learned. You break through. Sometimes, one small moment at a time.

All the while, people around them rallied, helping with any small problem they had. Jenny could not believe the kindness of people.

“Gino is quite embarrassed but I can’t help thinking if this was someone else’s child we would be the first to help,” she says.

Penrith boss Phil Gould invited them to watch the Panthers play Cronulla last Sunday.

“We know the NRL is behind us,” Jenny says.

And she is right. It is the game’s loss and thousands who did not now Lui felt his death in their own way.

Group 9 have organised a megaraffle to help the family.

Lui and Joey Polimeni with their father Gino.

NRL boss Todd Greenberg has donated four diamond NRL grand final tickets, including food and beverage, for first prize. Details are available on the Country Rugby League website, crlnsw.com.au.

The tickets are available for anybody that wants a shot at going to the grand final. Not just Group 9 locals.

Jenny is so overwhelmed by everyone’s kindness she is doing exactly what few would expect, but which surprised nobody.

She wants to donate part of the proceeds to Ronald McDonald House, so good to her and Gino and their extended family while they stood vigil for Lui in Canberra.

In their time of need they want to give back.

They have experienced the power of support and it is revealed in why Jenny wants to man the canteen.

Just a few weeks ago the Tigers took another knock.

They were playing Tumut again when Kyle went over for a try and took a knock in his back and failed to get up.

He was taken to Wagga Hospital and in the days since has already had a kidney removed while the other survives, working at 70 per cent, with lacerations.

Doctors have told him he will never play again.

Once again the team has been blindsided by pain.

So Jenny has rostered herself on the canteen to support the boys.