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Mother raising money for grave move, new headstone
Burial for slain Calvert County girl, 18, to cost about $15K
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All it takes is a moment. A moment a mother often thinks about.
“It should have never have happened,” Valerie Gunson said. “I am struggling to get up, just to live and take the next breath and think about what I am going to do in the next moment.”
Police discovered the body of Danielle Gunson, 18, in Brooklyn in September 2018. Liam Cameron Penn, a 26-year-old man from Woodstock, was charged in the killing of Gunson’s daughter and for shooting another man. The trial has been postponed until May 2020, according to online court documents.
Instead of urging her daughter to study for school, the Calvert County woman is organizing a fundraiser on Oct. 24 to afford a tombstone and a proper burial at Lakemont Memorial in Davidsonville.
If people alert their server at Greene Turtle in Annapolis, 10% of proceeds will go to the memorial plans, Gunson said.
Gunson reflects back beyond the day her daughter left and did not come back home. Danielle compiled moment after moment through a photo album.
“Forever,” is written across the cover and within the album are photos of a smiling girl with her little sister playing in the snow, laying out on North Beach or cooking in the kitchen. Gunson pops up often alongside in the captured images. They both have bright blue eyes.
“Danielle would do whatever I wanted to do. If I wanted to go get coffee, she would go ‘Yes I am going,’” Gunson said. “She was my best friend.”
The 18-year-old had plans to become a nurse in the military, she said.
She wants to move her daughter’s body to another location within the same cemetery. In addition to the relocation costs, Gunson wants a headstone and a bench engraved with a photo and a large heart in her daughter’s memory. To move her daughter’s body would cost about $6,000 and nearly $9,000 to buy the headstone and bench.
“Your child gives you strength and brings joy to your life. And when you take that away? You are left with pain,” Gunson said.
Though she cannot control what happened to her daughter, Gunson hopes to raise enough money to leave something beautiful.
“This is all I have — I would like it to be the best. Until you are put in this situation, it is a really huge burden,” she said.
Gunson said her daughter loved to document moments.
In one of the photos, Danielle stands with her back to the camera to show off her long hair.
“I used to tell her all the time, ‘I wish I had your hair,’” Gunson said with a smile.
In other photos, Danielle posed with her younger sister, Lillianna. The two could be seen cuddling on a couch or smiling with their faces close together.
“One of the main things about Danielle is her sister, Lilly,” Gunson said. “Lilly and her shared a room together and recently Lilly told me, ‘Mom I love sharing a room with Danielle.’”
In the absence of her daughter, Gunson talks of family memories in which they would all do things together, like going to a pumpkin patch or visiting West Virginia for Thanksgiving.
Recently, her family has had to do these trips without Danielle.
“We went to the pumpkin patch and it was really difficult because she can’t do that,” Gunson said. “She can’t have these new memories.”
For previous fundraisers, Gunson has held bake sales. She hopes the community will participate on Oct. 24, though she knows her fundraisers will not bring back her daughter.
She hopes to use the money to honor her daughter’s memory.
“There’s no money that will bring back what I had but I want to be able to have a place ... something on her grave that is worthy,” she said.