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‘I know you’re not here, but you are everywhere’: Grieving WA mother speaks out after crash claims twin daughters

By Daile Cross

February 26, 2024 — 1.38pm

A West Australian mother whose twin seven-year-old daughters died when the car she was driving crashed last week says “nothing makes sense now” after her excruciating loss.

Rachel van Oyen said she wished Macey and Riley could see how much of an impact they had made on so many hearts.

Rachel van Oyen with her twin daughters, Macey and Riley.Credit: Facebook

“In a blink of an eye everything changed. My entire world fell apart, vanished. There are still no words to describe this emptiness and pain I’m drowning in. It should have been me,” she wrote on Facebook.

“What I would give to take your places my precious girls.. I have never felt so helpless than I did that day, all I could do was try hold you briefly even though you’d both grew wings.

“Nothing makes sense now, you two were my absolute world and nothing made me more complete being your mother. You gave me so much purpose, you gave me a strength like no other, you gave me reason to live.”

Macey and Riley were travelling with their mother to Perth from Kalgoorlie on Sunday, February 18, when the family’s Toyota Camry sedan veered off the road and crashed into a tree.

It’s understood all three were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.

“How can we plan a future without the ones we planned to build one with? How can I be in our house when it’s no longer a home? The silence kills me and your absence destroys us in ways we can’t imagine ... I’m so lost,” van Oyen wrote.

Van Oyen said she refused to let the pain of her loss consumer her forever, and let her supporters know she was doing what she could to push through.

She said she had been overwhelmed by offers of help from the community.

Phillip van Oyen has set up a GoFundMe page, which has so far raised $37,000 for the family.

“Macey and Riley brought us so much love and joy, and as hard as it is without them, our lives were made better by their short existence,” he wrote.

“They were vibrant, cheeky, and beautiful young girls who had so much life and promise ahead of them. The impact that those two little lives had on our family is immeasurable, and the weight of their absence is felt every single day.”