A mother of two who started the new year by getting engaged is now in the process of healing after losing the love of her life to suicide.
Ashlee Bunker, 35, from Bribie Island in Queensland, got engaged in February after her long-term partner Joe Bloomfield, 42, popped the question.
Bunker woke up to an engagement ring on her nightstand and a note from Mr. Bloomfield asking her to marry him.
But tragedy struck the following week when Mr Bloomfield suddenly and unexpectedly ended his life on February 26.
Two days before they were shopping for wedding dresses and beginning preparations for the big day scheduled for August 31st.
A heartbroken Bunker told WhatsNew2Day Australia she wished Bloomfield had asked for help when she needed it most.
Ashlee Bunker, 35, from Bribie Island in Queensland, got engaged to her long-term partner Joe Bloomfield, 42, in February.
Days after their engagement, Mr. Broomfield took his own life before Ms. Bunker had time to resize her engagement ring.
“No one has ever loved me like him, I don’t even know how I’ll remember him because the truth is I just want him back,” she said.
“This was so unexpected, we had a wonderful time together and I wish he had asked for help.
‘He was literally the happiest person I knew and loved everyone. So much so that I think he forgot to live himself.
“It’s very important to be kind to people and appreciate them for who they are.”
Shortly after the two met in July 2021, they began running a property maintenance business and fixing up houses together.
Since Mr Bloomfield’s death, Ms Bunker has been left to care for her daughters, Ellie, 12, and Annaliese, 10, while she looks for a new job.
“I lost him and my job,” she said.
“My children lost the best stepfather I could have asked for.”
The couple met in July 2021 before starting a business together.
Bunker and Broomfield were supposed to get married on August 31, 2024.
A close friend of the couple, Simone Angus, launched a GoFundMe in the wake of Mr Bloomfield’s death which raised more than $7,000.
The money was used to cover funeral costs and provide financial support to Mrs Bunker, who was left “completely heartbroken”.
Bunker and Bloomfield shared many happy memories together online and always tagged each other in their own posts.
Last June, the couple visited Italy and took photos in front of the Trevi Fountain, prompting a friend to comment that they looked like a “Hollywood couple.”
“More glamorous than Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni,” they wrote under Bloomfield’s new profile photo.
In the image, Broomfield is wearing a blue Bondi Beach jersey that Bunker said was his favorite.
Since his passing, Mrs. Bunker has said she had two more spares of the T-shirt she and her children now choose to sleep in sometimes to remember him.
To close out her trip to Italy, Bloomfield shared a photo from the Bácaro Jazz Bar in Venice, where it’s the norm for patrons to leave a memento of their time there.
Bloomfield and Bunker signed one of their bras left at the bar to commemorate the trip and express their love.
“Ashlee Bunker is now immortalized… If you ever visit this place, visit this bar and enjoy a cold mail tai and leave your bra,” she wrote in the caption.
The loving couple visited Italy together in June 2023 and frequently posted information about each other online.
To close out their trip, Bloomfield shared a photo from the Bácaro Jazz Bar in Venice of a memory the couple decided to leave behind.
Bunker also shared that the note Bloomfield left by her bed simply said, “Will you marry me?”
‘You knew my answer was always yes, but you loved asking me. “I guess you knew that was your last chance to ask,” she wrote.
‘I resized it and can finally use it. It’s beautiful, you chose it well.’
Bunker is still coming to terms with what happened and said the couple had a lot to look forward to.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand why you choose in that moment to give up your entire life. You had a lot of life left to live,” she wrote on Facebook.
‘We were waiting for our cruise for your birthday. We had a surprise wedding in August. All you wanted was to be able to call me your wife and now that can never happen.
“I will wear the ring every day and I know it is the last thing I will ever receive from you.”
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Bunker said since the tragedy he lost the love of his life and his job.
A fundraiser organized by a family friend helped Bunker defray Broomfield’s funeral expenses.